Stem cells: the generation and maintenance of cellular diversity

作者：Peter A. Hall, Fiona M. Watt · 发表于：Development · 年份：1989 · DOI：10.1242/dev.106.4.619 · 被引用次数：510 · 研究领域：Pluripotent Stem Cells Research、Mesenchymal stem cell research、Animal Genetics and Reproduction

Cell divisions during embryonic development give rise to new differentiated cell types or increase the total number of cells in the embryo. In contrast, the major role of cell division in adult life is to maintain the number of differentiated cells at a constant level: to replace cells that have died or been lost through injury.The rate at which new cells are produced in the adult is a measure of how rapidly the cell population is turning over and, on this basis, tissues can be divided into three broad categories (Leblond, 1963). In tissues with static cell populations, such as nerve and skeletal muscle, there is no cell division and most of the cells formed during development persist throughout adult life. In tissues containing conditional renewal populations, such as liver, there is generally little cell division, but in response to an appropriate stimulus most cells can divide to produce daughters of the same differentiated phenotype. Finally, tissues with perma-nently renewing populations, including blood, testis and stratified squamous epithelia, are characterized by rapid and continuous cell turnover in the adult: the terminally differentiated cells have a short lifespan and are replaced through proliferation of a distinct sub-population of cells, known as stem cells.The simplest definition of a stem cell is that it is any cell with a high capacity for self-renewal, extending throughout adult life. In addition, stem cells are usually considered to have the potential to ...