Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
Physiol Res. 2019 Dec 30;68(Suppl 4):S375-S384. doi: 10.33549/physiolres.934388.
Adult stem cells are undifferentiated elements able to self-renew or differentiate to maintain tissue integrity. Within this context, stem cells are able to divide in a symmetric fashion, feature characterising all the somatic cells, or in an asymmetric way, which leads daughter cells to different fates. It is worth highlighting that cell polarity have a critical role in regulating stem cell asymmetric division and the proper control of cell division depends on different proteins involved in cell development, differentiation and maintenance of tissue homeostasis. Moreover, the interaction between cells and the extracellular matrix are crucial in influencing cell behavior, included in terms of mechanical properties as cytoskeleton plasticity and remodelling, and membrane tension. Finally, the activation of specific transcriptional program and epigenetic modifications contributes to cell fate determination, through modulation of cellular signalling cascades. It is well known that physical and mechanical stimuli are able to influence biological systems, and in this context, the effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) have already shown a considerable role, even though there is a lack of knowledge and much remains to be done around this topic. In this review, we summarize the historical background of EMFs applications and the main molecular mechanism involved in cellular remodelling, with particular attention to cytoskeleton elasticity and cell polarity, required for driving stem cell behavior.
成体干细胞是未分化的细胞，能够自我更新或分化以维持组织完整性。在这种情况下，干细胞能够以对称的方式分裂，这是所有体细胞的特征，或者以不对称的方式分裂，导致子细胞走向不同的命运。值得强调的是，细胞极性在调节干细胞不对称分裂中起着关键作用，细胞分裂的适当控制取决于参与细胞发育、分化和组织稳态维持的不同蛋白质。此外，细胞与细胞外基质之间的相互作用对于影响细胞行为至关重要，包括细胞骨架的可塑性和重塑以及膜张力等机械特性。最后，特定转录程序的激活和表观遗传修饰有助于通过细胞信号转导途径的调节来决定细胞命运。众所周知，物理和机械刺激能够影响生物系统，在这种情况下，电磁场 (EMF) 的影响已经显示出相当大的作用，尽管在这一主题上仍然缺乏知识，还有很多工作要做。在这篇综述中，我们总结了电磁场应用的历史背景和涉及细胞重塑的主要分子机制，特别关注细胞骨架弹性和细胞极性，这是驱动干细胞行为所必需的。
