Journal of Stem Cell Research & Therapy

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

For postnatal growth and regeneration of skeletal muscle, satellite cells, a self-renewing pool of muscle stem cells, give rise to daughter myogenic precursor cells that contribute to the formation of new muscle fibers. In addition to this key myogenic cell class, adult skeletal muscle also contains hematopoietic stem cell and progenitor cell populations which can be purified as a side population (SP) fraction or as a hematopoietic marker CD45-positive cell population. These muscle-derived hematopoietic stem/progenitor cell populations are surprisingly capable of differentiation into hematopoietic cells both after transplantation into irradiated mice and during in vitro colony formation assay...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The capacity of adult skeletal muscle for regeneration appears to be limited, with progressive impairment in repair efficiency of injured muscles observed in chronic muscular disorders and during aging. While satellite cells, the committed adult muscle stem cells, are the main direct cell source supporting the regenerative potential of adult skeletal muscles, the characterization of the cell types and signals that constitute the functional "niche" of satellite cells is currently the object of intense investigation...

Optimal regeneration of skeletal muscle in response to injury requires the contribution of tissue resident stem cells termed satellite cells. Normally residing at the interface between the muscle fiber and overlying basal lamina it is generally understood with age the satellite cell pool exhibits decline both in number and function. Over the past decade mechanisms that contribute to these declines have begun to emerge. Implicit in aged-related satellite cell dysfunction and decline is the involvement of signals from the environment...

INTRODUCTION: The potential of pluripotent stem cells to be used for cell therapy depends on a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying their unique ability to specify cells of all germ layers while undergoing unlimited self-renewal. Alternative splicing and alternate promoter selection contribute to this mechanism by increasing the number of transcripts generated from a single gene locus and thus enabling expression of novel protein variants which may differ in their biological role...

Liver diseases affect millions of people worldwide, especially in developing country. According to the American Liver Foundation, nearly 1 in every 10 Americans suffers from some form of liver disease. Even though, the liver has great ability to self-repair, in end-stage liver diseases including fibrosis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer induced by viral hepatitis and drugs, the liver regenerative capacity is exhausted. The only successful treatment for chronic liver failure is the whole liver transplantation. More recently, some clinical trials using hepatocyte transplantation have shown some clinical improvement for metabolic liver diseases and acute liver failure...

Transcriptional enhancers are DNA elements capable of regulating gene expression in-cis over great distances. With the recent availability of genomic approaches to define epigenetic marks and RNA levels, these previously difficult to study elements are now being extensively examined for their critical role in lineage-specific transcriptional regulation. This review sets out to highlight the use of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in the study of enhancers, emphasizing that ESC have become an ideal model system for questions regarding mammalian transcriptional regulation...

BACKGROUND: Neural cell transplantation is a promising therapy for stroke, but rejection of human cells in animal models is an obstacle to furthering this research. Many antirejection strategies have been reported, but few comparison data are available. We asked if human neural cell grafts would have different survival or differentiation with injected or oral cyclosporine regimens. METHODS: Rats received intracerebral grafts of human embryonic stem cell-derived neural progenitors, and 6 rats each were randomized to 4 cyclosporine regimens: 1) daily injections, 2) initial injections followed by oral drug in the drinking water, 3) oral drug only, or 4) no cyclosporine...

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Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) signaling has been implicated in driving tumor progression and metastasis by inducing stem cell-like features in some human cancer cell lines. In this study, we have utilized a novel murine cell line NMuMG-ST, which acquired cancer stem cell (CSC) phenotypes during spontaneous transformation of the untransformed murine mammary cell line NMuMG, to investigate the role of autocrine TGF-β signaling in regulating their survival, metastatic ability, and the maintenance of cancer stem cell characteristics...

Controlled myogenic differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells by Pax3 combined with purification of PDGFαR(+)Flk-1(-) paraxial mesoderm results in the efficient in vitro generation of early skeletal myogenic progenitors. Upon transplantation into dystrophin-deficient mdx mice, these progenitors promote significant regeneration that is accompanied by improvement in muscle contractility. In this study, we aimed to raise the bar and assess the therapeutic potential of these cells in a more clinically relevant model of muscular dystrophy: the dystrophin-utrophin double-knockout (dKO) mouse...

Recently we and two other groups have shown that human spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) have the potential to become pluripotent in vitro in defined culture conditions and to differentiate into cells of the three embryonic germ layers. This discovery could open new avenues for autologous cell-based therapy in degenerative diseases, bypassing the ethical and immunological problems related to the human embryonic stem cells. In addition, human SSCs could be used to treat infertility in cancer survival children...

The α-chemokine stromal derived factor-1 (SDF-1) - seven transmembrane span receptor CXCR4 axis plays a crucial role in retention of hematopoietic stem progenitor cells (HSPCs) in BM. However, the mechanisms that govern mobilization/release of HSPCs from bone marrow (BM) into peripheral blood (PB) and direct a reverse process of their homing back into BM microenvironment after transplantation are still poorly understood. Augmenting evidence demonstrates that during both mobilization and myeloablative conditioning for transplantation a proteolytic microenvironment is induced in BM and complement cascade (CC) becomes activated...