Review

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 8, 345-354 (May 2007) | doi:10.1038/nrm2164

Article series: Stem cells

Stem-cell niches: nursery rhymes across kingdoms

Ben Scheres1  About the author

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Despite the large evolutionary distance between the plant and animal kingdoms, stem cells in both reside in specialized cellular contexts called stem-cell niches. Although stem-cell-specification factors have been recruited from plant-specific gene families, maintenance factors that repress stem-cell differentiation are conserved between plants and animals. Recent evidence indicates that stem cells in multicellular organisms can be specified by kingdom-specific patterning mechanisms that connect to a related core of epigenetic stem-cell factors.

Author affiliations

  1. Molecular Genetics Group, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH Utrecht, the Netherlands.
    Email: b.scheres@bio.uu.nl

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