Daley George Q
Stem Cell Transplantation Program, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115, USA Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2015 Oct 19;370(1680):20140376. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0376.
Stem cells are but one class of the myriad types of cells within an organism. With potential to self-renew and capacity to differentiate, stem cells play essential roles at multiple stages of development. In the early embryo, pluripotent stem cells represent progenitors for all tissues while later in development, tissue-restricted stem cells give rise to cells with highly specialized functions. As best understood in the blood, skin and gut, stem cells are the seeds that sustain tissue homeostasis and regeneration, while in other tissues like the muscle, liver, kidney and lung, various stem or progenitor cells play facultative roles in tissue repair and response to injury. Here, I will provide a brief perspective on the evolving notion of cellular identity and how reprogramming and transcription factor-mediated conversions of one cell type into another have fundamentally altered our assumptions about the stability of cell identity, with profound long-term implications for biomedical research and regenerative medicine.
干细胞只是生物体内无数类型细胞中的一类。干细胞具有自我更新的潜力和分化的能力，在发育的多个阶段发挥着重要作用。在早期胚胎中，多能干细胞是所有组织的祖细胞，而在发育后期，组织限制性干细胞产生具有高度特化功能的细胞。正如在血液、皮肤和肠道中所熟知的那样，干细胞是维持组织稳态和再生的种子，而在肌肉、肝脏、肾脏和肺等其他组织中，各种干细胞或祖细胞在组织修复和损伤反应中发挥着辅助作用。在此，我将简要阐述细胞身份这一不断演变的概念，以及重编程和转录因子介导的一种细胞类型向另一种细胞类型的转化如何从根本上改变了我们对细胞身份稳定性的假设，这对生物医学研究和再生医学具有深远的长期影响。
