Access

Review

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 8, 345–354 (1 May 2007) | doi:10.1038/nrm2164

Stem-cell niches: nursery rhymes across kingdoms

Ben Scheres

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.