González-Reyes Acaimo
Instituto de Parasitología y Biomedicina-CSIC, C/Ventanilla 11, 18001 Granada, Spain.
J Cell Sci. 2003 Mar 15;116(Pt 6):949-54. doi: 10.1242/jcs.00310.
Stem cells are essential for the correct development and homeostasis of adult organisms, as well as having obvious potential therapeutic importance. Analysis of the biology of stem cells and their regulatory microenvironment in adult organs has, however, been hindered by the rarity of these cells in mature tissues and by the lack of positive markers for them. The ovary of the Drosophila melanogaster female is a stem cell niche in which such analyses can be performed. The stromal cells of the microenvironment act as a regulatory centre to control the proliferation and differentiation of the germline stem cells, using several signalling molecules, among them the protein DPP - a Drosophila homologue of the human bone morphogenetic proteins BMP2 and BMP4. Recent work shows that DE-cadherin-mediated adhesion is used for the initial recruitment and posterior anchoring of the germline-derived stem cells in their niche.
干细胞对于成年生物体的正常发育和体内平衡至关重要，同时具有明显的潜在治疗价值。然而，由于这些细胞在成熟组织中数量稀少且缺乏阳性标记物，对成体器官中干细胞生物学及其调节微环境的分析受到了阻碍。果蝇雌性的卵巢是一个干细胞生态位，在其中可以进行此类分析。微环境的基质细胞作为一个调节中心，利用几种信号分子来控制生殖系干细胞的增殖和分化，其中包括蛋白质DPP——人类骨形态发生蛋白BMP2和BMP4的果蝇同源物。最近的研究表明，DE-钙黏蛋白介导的黏附作用用于生殖系来源的干细胞在其生态位中的初始募集和后部锚定。
