Blood vessels define local microenvironments in the skeletal system, play crucial roles in osteogenesis and provide niches for haematopoietic stem cells. The properties of niche-forming vessels and their changes in the ageing organism remain incompletely understood. Here we show that Notch signalling in endothelial cells leads to the expansion of haematopoietic stem cell niches in bone, which involves increases in CD31-positive capillaries and platelet-derived...
Tag Archives: cells
Memory retrieval by activating engram cells in mouse models of early Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive memory decline and subsequent loss of broader cognitive functions. Memory decline in the early stages of AD is mostly limited to episodic memory, for which the hippocampus has a crucial role. However, it has been uncertain whether the observed amnesia in the early stages of AD is due to disrupted encoding and consolidation of...
Visualization of immediate immune responses to pioneer metastatic cells in the lung
Lung metastasis is the lethal determinant in many cancers and a number of lines of evidence point to monocytes and macrophages having key roles in its development. Yet little is known about the immediate fate of incoming tumour cells as they colonize this tissue, and even less known about how they make first contact with the immune system. Primary tumours liberate circulating tumour cells...
Lens regeneration using endogenous stem cells with gain of visual function
The repair and regeneration of tissues using endogenous stem cells represents an ultimate goal in regenerative medicine. To our knowledge, human lens regeneration has not yet been demonstrated. Currently, the only treatment for cataracts, the leading cause of blindness worldwide, is to extract the cataractous lens and implant an artificial intraocular lens. However, this procedure poses notable risks of complications. Here we isolate lens...
Co-ordinated ocular development from human iPS cells and recovery of corneal function
The eye is a complex organ with highly specialized constituent tissues derived from different primordial cell lineages. The retina, for example, develops from neuroectoderm via the optic vesicle, the corneal epithelium is descended from surface ectoderm, while the iris and collagen-rich stroma of the cornea have a neural crest origin. Recent work with pluripotent stem cells in culture has revealed a previously under-appreciated level...
Regeneration: Stem cells make the bowel nervous
In Hirschsprung disease, the enteric nervous system (ENS) is missing from the distal bowel. It emerges that postnatal transplantation of stem-cell-derived ENS precursors can prevent death in a mouse model of the disease.
Nature doi: 10.1038/nature16877
Genome-wide nucleosome specificity and function of chromatin remodellers in ES cells
ATP-dependent chromatin remodellers allow access to DNA for transcription factors and the general transcription machinery, but whether mammalian chromatin remodellers target specific nucleosomes to regulate transcription is unclear. Here we present genome-wide remodeller–nucleosome interaction profiles for the chromatin remodellers Chd1, Chd2, Chd4, Chd6, Chd8, Chd9, Brg1 and Ep400 in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. These remodellers bind one or both full nucleosomes that flank...
Structural disorder of monomeric α-synuclein persists in mammalian cells
Intracellular aggregation of the human amyloid protein α-synuclein is causally linked to Parkinson’s disease. While the isolated protein is intrinsically disordered, its native structure in mammalian cells is not known. Here we use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to derive atomic-resolution insights into the structure and dynamics of α-synuclein in different mammalian cell types. We show that the disordered...
Mitofusin 2 maintains haematopoietic stem cells with extensive lymphoid potential
Haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), which sustain production of all blood cell lineages, rely on glycolysis for ATP production, yet little attention has been paid to the role of mitochondria. Here we show in mice that the short isoform of a critical regulator of HSCs, Prdm16 (refs 4, 5), induces mitofusin 2 (Mfn2), a protein involved in mitochondrial fusion and in tethering of mitochondria to...
Graded Foxo1 activity in Treg cells differentiates tumour immunity from spontaneous autoimmunity
Regulatory T (Treg) cells expressing the transcription factor Foxp3 have a pivotal role in maintaining immunological self-tolerance; yet, excessive Treg cell activities suppress anti-tumour immune responses. Compared to the resting Treg (rTreg) cell phenotype in secondary lymphoid organs, Treg cells in non-lymphoid tissues exhibit an activated Treg (aTreg) cell phenotype. However, the function of aTreg cells and whether their generation can be manipulated are...