The past few years may have been a golden time in the history of stem cell research.The unique properties stem cells possess,to proliferate indefinitely and to differentiate into multiple kinds of cells,make these cel...The past few years may have been a golden time in the history of stem cell research.The unique properties stem cells possess,to proliferate indefinitely and to differentiate into multiple kinds of cells,make these cells wonderful platforms for studying organism development and valuable sources for regenerative medicine.Many research teams worldwide have joined this area and contributed at multiple levels.Nowadays,stem cell research has been an integration of multiple disciplines ranging from basic biological studies of genetic and epigenetic regulation of cell state,to translational biomedical studies on drug discovery and clinical treatment,and to biotechnology such as new biomaterials exploration.Taking the most exciting advances as an example,in 2006 Yamanaka and colleagues generated induced pluripotent stem(iPS)cells by ectopic expression of four transcription factors in somatic cells.iPS cells soon became a focus of mechanistic studies of epigenetic determination of cell fate,such as histone modification,DNA methylation and non-protein-coding RNAs.Meanwhile,disease-specific iPS cells are largely used for high-throughput drug discovery.And many teams have already performed iPS cell-based transplantation therapy in rodent models.Aiming at better utilizing iPS cells,new technologies such as single cell imaging and mRNA mediated gene transfection are being explored.Based on these advancements,we believe there will be more fascinating discoveries in stem cell research in the near future.展开更多
文摘The past few years may have been a golden time in the history of stem cell research.The unique properties stem cells possess,to proliferate indefinitely and to differentiate into multiple kinds of cells,make these cells wonderful platforms for studying organism development and valuable sources for regenerative medicine.Many research teams worldwide have joined this area and contributed at multiple levels.Nowadays,stem cell research has been an integration of multiple disciplines ranging from basic biological studies of genetic and epigenetic regulation of cell state,to translational biomedical studies on drug discovery and clinical treatment,and to biotechnology such as new biomaterials exploration.Taking the most exciting advances as an example,in 2006 Yamanaka and colleagues generated induced pluripotent stem(iPS)cells by ectopic expression of four transcription factors in somatic cells.iPS cells soon became a focus of mechanistic studies of epigenetic determination of cell fate,such as histone modification,DNA methylation and non-protein-coding RNAs.Meanwhile,disease-specific iPS cells are largely used for high-throughput drug discovery.And many teams have already performed iPS cell-based transplantation therapy in rodent models.Aiming at better utilizing iPS cells,new technologies such as single cell imaging and mRNA mediated gene transfection are being explored.Based on these advancements,we believe there will be more fascinating discoveries in stem cell research in the near future.
