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Ferreting out stem cells from their niches

Nature Cell Biology volume 13, pages 513–518 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Over the past decade, it has become increasingly clear that many tissues have regenerative capabilities. The challenge has been to find the stem cells or progenitors that are responsible for tissue renewal and repair. The revolution in technological advances that permit sophisticated spatial, temporal and kinetic analyses of stem cells has allowed stem cell hunters to ferret out where stem cells live, and to monitor when they come and go from these hiding places.

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Figure 1: Regulated expression of histone H2B–GFP to follow slow-cycling cells within a tissue.
Figure 2: Genetic lineage tracing mediated by Cre recombinase in mammalian tissues.
Figure 3: Multicolour Cre-recombinase-mediated reporter for marking stem cells and their progeny.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our colleagues in the stem cell field whose ingenuity and creativity have developed these technologies for stem cell biology. In particular, we thank T. Tumbar (Cornell University, USA), H. Hock (Harvard Medical School, Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Cancer Center and Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Harvard University, USA), H. Clevers (Hubrecht Institute, the Netherlands), H. Snippert (Clevers Lab, Hubrecht Institute, the Netherlands), N. Barker (Hubrecht Institute, the Netherlands), Y-C. Hsu (Fuchs lab, Rockefeller University, USA) and J. Nowak (Rockefeller University, USA) for providing images. V.H. is a Pew Scholar in Biomedical Research and is funded by funded by the NIH (4R00AR054775) and the Connecticut Dept. Public Health (09SCAYALE30). E.F. is an HHMI investigator and receives support for her research on the identification and tracking of stem cells from the NIH (R01-AR050452) and New York State.

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  1. Elaine Fuchs is at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Mammalian Cell Biology and Development, the Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10065, USA,

    Elaine Fuchs

  2. Valerie Horsley is at the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA,

    Valerie Horsley

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Correspondence to Elaine Fuchs.

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Fuchs, E., Horsley, V. Ferreting out stem cells from their niches. Nat Cell Biol 13, 513–518 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb0511-513

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