Rodas-Junco Beatriz A, Canul-Chan Michel, Rojas-Herrera Rafael A, De-la-Peña Clelia, Nic-Can Geovanny I
CONACYT-Facultad de Ingeniería Química, Campus de Ciencias Exactas e Ingeniería, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Mexico.
Facultad de Ingeniería Química, Campus de Ciencias Exactas e Ingeniería, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Mexico.
Front Physiol. 2017 Dec 6;8:999. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2017.00999. eCollection 2017.
Adult stem cells have attracted scientific attention because they are able to self-renew and differentiate into several specialized cell types. In this context, human dental tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hDT-MSCs) have emerged as a possible solution for repairing or regenerating damaged tissues. These cells can be isolated from primary teeth that are naturally replaced, third molars, or other dental tissues and exhibit self-renewal, a high proliferative rate and a great multilineage potential. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms that determine lineage specification are still largely unknown. It is known that a change in cell fate requires the deletion of existing transcriptional programs, followed by the establishment of a new developmental program to give rise to a new cell lineage. Increasing evidence indicates that chromatin structure conformation can influence cell fate. In this way, reversible chemical modifications at the DNA or histone level, and combinations thereof can activate or inactivate cell-type-specific gene sequences, giving rise to an alternative cell fates. On the other hand, miRNAs are starting to emerge as a possible player in establishing particular somatic lineages. In this review, we discuss two new and promising research fields in medicine and biology, epigenetics and stem cells, by summarizing the properties of hDT-MSCs and highlighting the recent findings on epigenetic contributions to the regulation of cellular differentiation.
成体干细胞因其能够自我更新并分化为多种特化细胞类型而引起了科学界的关注。在此背景下，人牙组织来源的间充质干细胞（hDT-MSCs）已成为修复或再生受损组织的一种可能解决方案。这些细胞可以从自然替换的乳牙、第三磨牙或其他牙组织中分离出来，并表现出自我更新、高增殖率和强大的多向分化潜能。然而，决定细胞谱系特化的细胞和分子机制仍 largely 未知。已知细胞命运的改变需要删除现有的转录程序，随后建立新的发育程序以产生新的细胞谱系。越来越多的证据表明，染色质结构构象可以影响细胞命运。通过这种方式，DNA 或组蛋白水平上的可逆化学修饰及其组合可以激活或失活细胞类型特异性基因序列，从而产生替代细胞命运。另一方面，miRNA 开始成为建立特定体细胞谱系的可能参与者。在本综述中，我们通过总结 hDT-MSCs 的特性并强调表观遗传学对细胞分化调控的最新发现，讨论医学和生物学中两个新的且有前景的研究领域，即表观遗传学和干细胞。
