Bera Soumen, Loeffler Dirk
Department of Hematology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
Comprehensive Cancer Center, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
Leukemia. 2025 Apr 9. doi: 10.1038/s41375-025-02601-x.
Cell polarity, the asymmetric organization of cellular components, is evolutionarily conserved from unicellular and multicellular organisms and is crucial for many biological processes. Polarity is required to maintain cell and tissue integrity by regulating cell division, migration, orientation, cell-cell interactions, and morphogenesis. Impaired polarity leads to dysregulation of cellular functions and is associated with disease. Understanding how polarity is established, maintained, and regulated is thus critical to improving our knowledge of pathologies and devising novel therapies. Here, we explore the various manifestations of cell polarity across different model systems, tissues, and cell types and focus on known polarity mechanisms in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. We discuss how cells with vastly different functions utilize conserved molecular complexes to establish cell polarity while adapting polarity proteins to unique cell-type-specific functions. In this discussion, we attempt to extract common themes and concepts to improve our understanding of cell polarity in hematological malignancies and other diseases. Finally, we summarize, compare, and evaluate classical as well as recently developed methods to quantify cell polarity, highlight important advances in imaging and analytical techniques, and suggest critical next steps required to move the field forward.
细胞极性，即细胞成分的不对称组织，在单细胞和多细胞生物中都是进化上保守的，并且对许多生物学过程至关重要。极性通过调节细胞分裂、迁移、方向、细胞间相互作用和形态发生来维持细胞和组织的完整性。极性受损会导致细胞功能失调，并与疾病相关。因此，了解极性是如何建立、维持和调节的对于增进我们对病理学的认识以及设计新的治疗方法至关重要。在这里，我们探讨了细胞极性在不同模型系统、组织和细胞类型中的各种表现，并重点关注造血干细胞和祖细胞中已知的极性机制。我们讨论了具有截然不同功能的细胞如何利用保守的分子复合物来建立细胞极性，同时使极性蛋白适应独特的细胞类型特异性功能。在本次讨论中，我们试图提取共同的主题和概念，以增进我们对血液系统恶性肿瘤和其他疾病中细胞极性的理解。最后，我们总结、比较和评估了经典的以及最近开发的量化细胞极性的方法，突出了成像和分析技术的重要进展，并提出了推动该领域向前发展所需的关键下一步。
