Viatour Patrick
Center for Childhood Cancer Research, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA ; Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Genes Cancer. 2012 Nov;3(11-12):670-7. doi: 10.1177/1947601913481355.
Stem cells are a unique population that lies at the summit of any, or at least most, biological systems. They can differentiate in a variety of mature cell types, but they also have the ability to self-renew, that is, the capacity to divide and retain all the features of the mother cell. The regulation of self-renewal has been studied for many years, but several aspects of this regulation are still vague. The combined decision to divide and self-renew or differentiate suggests that the mechanisms that regulate self-renewal and cell cycle activity are intermingled. While inactivation of many cell cycle regulators impacts the physiological and pathological biology of stem cells, the exact mechanisms that link the decision to enter the cell cycle and the choice of the cellular fate are poorly understood. The multiplicity of signals and pathways regulating self-renewal add to the complexity of the phenomenon. Here, I will review the described links between the cell cycle and self-renewal and discuss the role of the niche in the regulation of both mechanisms.
干细胞是一类独特的细胞群体，处于任何生物系统（或至少大多数生物系统）的顶端。它们能够分化为多种成熟细胞类型，但同时也具备自我更新能力，即分裂并保留母细胞所有特征的能力。自我更新的调控已被研究多年，然而该调控的几个方面仍不明确。分裂、自我更新或分化的综合决定表明，调控自我更新和细胞周期活性的机制相互交织。虽然许多细胞周期调节因子的失活会影响干细胞的生理和病理生物学特性，但将进入细胞周期的决定与细胞命运选择联系起来的确切机制仍知之甚少。调节自我更新的信号和途径的多样性增加了这一现象的复杂性。在此，我将回顾已描述的细胞周期与自我更新之间的联系，并讨论干细胞龛在这两种机制调控中的作用。
