Stem cells and progenitor cells are the cells of origin for multi-cellular organisms and organs.They play key roles during development and their dysregulation gives rise to human diseases such as cancer.The recent de-...Stem cells and progenitor cells are the cells of origin for multi-cellular organisms and organs.They play key roles during development and their dysregulation gives rise to human diseases such as cancer.The recent de-velopment of induced pluripotent stem cell(iPSC)technology which converts somatic cells to stem-like cells holds great promise for regenerative medicine.Nevertheless,the understanding of proliferation,dif-ferentiation,and self-renewal of stem cells and or-gan-specific progenitor cells is far from clear.Recently,the Hippo pathway was demonstrated to play important roles in these processes.The Hippo pathway is a newly established signaling pathway with critical functions in limiting organ size and suppressing tumorigenesis.This pathway was first found to inhibit cell proliferation and promote apoptosis,therefore regulating cell num-ber and organ size in both Drosophila and mammals.However,in several organs,disturbance of the pathway leads to specific expansion of the progenitor cell com-partment and manipulation of the pathway in embryonic stem cells strongly affects their self-renewal and dif-ferentiation.In this review,we summarize current ob-servations on roles of the Hippo pathway in different types of stem cells and discuss how these findings changed our view on the Hippo pathway in organ de-velopment and tumorigenesis.展开更多
基金This work was supported by grants from the Na-tional Natural Science Foundation of China
文摘Stem cells and progenitor cells are the cells of origin for multi-cellular organisms and organs.They play key roles during development and their dysregulation gives rise to human diseases such as cancer.The recent de-velopment of induced pluripotent stem cell(iPSC)technology which converts somatic cells to stem-like cells holds great promise for regenerative medicine.Nevertheless,the understanding of proliferation,dif-ferentiation,and self-renewal of stem cells and or-gan-specific progenitor cells is far from clear.Recently,the Hippo pathway was demonstrated to play important roles in these processes.The Hippo pathway is a newly established signaling pathway with critical functions in limiting organ size and suppressing tumorigenesis.This pathway was first found to inhibit cell proliferation and promote apoptosis,therefore regulating cell num-ber and organ size in both Drosophila and mammals.However,in several organs,disturbance of the pathway leads to specific expansion of the progenitor cell com-partment and manipulation of the pathway in embryonic stem cells strongly affects their self-renewal and dif-ferentiation.In this review,we summarize current ob-servations on roles of the Hippo pathway in different types of stem cells and discuss how these findings changed our view on the Hippo pathway in organ de-velopment and tumorigenesis.
