Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, J.J. Thomson Avenue, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom.
Exp Cell Res. 2011 Nov 15;317(19):2719-24. doi: 10.1016/j.yexcr.2011.07.010. Epub 2011 Jul 20.
As a rapidly cycling tissue capable of fast repair and regeneration, the intestinal epithelium has emerged as a favored model system to explore the principles of adult stem cell biology. However, until recently, the identity and characteristics of the stem cell population in both the small intestine and colon has remained the subject of debate. Recent studies based on targeted lineage tracing strategies, combined with the development of an organotypic culture system, have identified the crypt base columnar cell as the intestinal stem cell, and have unveiled the strategy by which the balance between proliferation and differentiation is maintained. These results show that intestinal stem cells operate in a dynamic environment in which frequent and stochastic stem cell loss is compensated by the proliferation of neighboring stem cells. We review the basis of these experimental findings and the insights they offer into the mechanisms of homeostatic stem cell regulation.
作为一种能够快速修复和再生的快速循环组织，肠道上皮已成为探索成人干细胞生物学原理的首选模型系统。然而，直到最近，小肠和结肠中的干细胞群体的特性和特征仍然存在争议。最近基于靶向谱系追踪策略的研究，结合器官型培养系统的发展，已经确定了隐窝基柱状细胞是肠道干细胞，并揭示了维持增殖和分化之间平衡的策略。这些结果表明，肠道干细胞在一个动态的环境中运作，其中频繁和随机的干细胞丢失由相邻干细胞的增殖来补偿。我们回顾了这些实验发现的基础以及它们为稳态干细胞调节机制提供的见解。
