Stem cells articles within Nature

Featured

• Article | 05 December 2023

  Hypoblast from human pluripotent stem cells regulates epiblast development

  • Takumi Okubo
  • , Nicolas Rivron
  •  & Yasuhiro Takashima

• World View | 15 November 2023

  Yes to global standards for research — as long as they are truly global

  Guidelines for research can level the playing field for scientists in low-resource settings — but diverse voices are needed to ensure that people worldwide can actually follow them.

  • Maneesha S. Inamdar

• News | 09 November 2023

  This hybrid baby monkey is made of cells from two embryos

  The work paves the way for scientists to use chimeric primates to study human diseases.

  • Carissa Wong

• Obituary | 30 October 2023

  Ian Wilmut, embryologist who helped to produce Dolly the sheep (1944–2023)

  Developmental biologist who led team that cloned the first mammal using adult cells.

  • Sarah Franklin

• News & Views | 17 October 2023

  Stem cells used to model a two-week-old human embryo

  Researchers have used stem cells to create models that resemble human embryos at two weeks old, but bypass the earliest developmental stages — paving the way for studies that are not possible in human embryos.

  • Naomi Moris

• Comment | 02 October 2023

  Why researchers should use human embryo models with caution

  Scientists should carefully consider whether embryo models based on human stem cells are essential to their work because of the associated practical and ethical challenges.

  • Janet Rossant
  •  & Jianping Fu

• News & Views | 20 September 2023

  Dual stem-cell populations interact in the skull

  The discovery that the skull has two groups of stem cell that produce similar types of descendant cell has big implications for the field of stem-cell research — and casts light on a developmental disorder that affects many children.

  • Andrei S. Chagin
  •  & Dana Trompet

• Nature Podcast | 20 September 2023

  Why does cancer spread to the spine? Newly discovered stem cells might be the key

  A stem cell vital for vertebral growth also drives spine metastases, and the use of MDMA in the treatment of PTSD.

  • Benjamin Thompson
  •  & Shamini Bundell

• Article
  20 September 2023 | Open Access

  Transgenic ferret models define pulmonary ionocyte diversity and function

  Conditional genetic ferret models enable ionocyte lineage tracing, ionocyte ablation and ionocyte-specific deletion of CFTR to elucidate the roles of pulmonary ionocyte biology and function during human health and disease.

  • Feng Yuan
  • , Grace N. Gasser
  •  & John F. Engelhardt

• Article | 20 September 2023

  A multi-stem cell basis for craniosynostosis and calvarial mineralization

  The calvarial stem cell niche is populated by a cathepsin K-expressing cell lineage and a newly identified discoidin domain-containing receptor 2-expressing lineage, both of which are required for proper calvarial mineralization.

  • Seoyeon Bok
  • , Alisha R. Yallowitz
  •  & Matthew B. Greenblatt

• Article | 18 September 2023

  Cholinergic neurons trigger epithelial Ca²⁺ currents to heal the gut

  A subpopulation of cholinergic neurons triggers Ca²⁺ currents among enterocytes to promote return to homeostasis after injury, and disruption of this process leads to gut inflammation and hyperplasia in Drosophila.

  • Afroditi Petsakou
  • , Yifang Liu
  •  & Norbert Perrimon

• News & Views | 13 September 2023

  Stem cells provide clues to why vertebrae attract tumour cells

  Tumour cells tend to migrate to the vertebrae rather than to long bones, but the mechanism underlying this has been unclear. It emerges that the stem cells from which vertebrae are derived make a factor that attracts tumour cells.

  • Geert Carmeliet

• News | 13 September 2023

  Breast cancer often spreads to the spine — newfound stem cell can explain why

  A stem cell that contributes to vertebra formation also encourages the growth of tumours that move to the backbone from elsewhere.

  • Saima Sidik

• Article
  13 September 2023 | Open Access

  Single-cell brain organoid screening identifies developmental defects in autism

  We develop a high-throughput CRISPR screening system in cerebral organoids and identify vulnerable cell types and gene regulatory networks associated with autism spectrum disorder from single-cell transcriptomes and chromatin modalities.

  • Chong Li
  • , Jonas Simon Fleck
  •  & Juergen A. Knoblich

• Article | 13 September 2023

  A vertebral skeletal stem cell lineage driving metastasis

  Vertebral osteoblasts in mouse and human are formed from a precursor skeletal stem cell population that is distinct from long bone skeletal stem cells in function, location and transcriptional programme.

  • Jun Sun
  • , Lingling Hu
  •  & Matthew B. Greenblatt

• Article
  06 September 2023 | Open Access

  Complete human day 14 post-implantation embryo models from naive ES cells

  The culture of genetically unmodified human naive embryonic stem cells in specific growth conditions gives rise to structures that recapitulate those of post-implantation human embryos up to 13–14 days after fertilization.

  • Bernardo Oldak
  • , Emilie Wildschutz
  •  & Jacob H. Hanna

• Article
  30 August 2023 | Open Access

  Epitope editing enables targeted immunotherapy of acute myeloid leukaemia

  Epitope engineering of donor haematopoietic stem/progenitor cells endows haematopoietic lineages with selective resistance to CAR T cells or monoclonal antibodies, without affecting protein function or regulation, enabling the targeting of genes that are essential for leukaemia survival and reducing the risk of tumour immune escape.

  • Gabriele Casirati
  • , Andrea Cosentino
  •  & Pietro Genovese

• Research Briefing | 16 August 2023

  A way to wipe a cell’s memory

  Cells that have been artificially reprogrammed into states similar to embryonic stem cells — known as induced pluripotent stem cells — can bear a memory of their previous history. An innovative method that incorporates a step mimicking early development yields pluripotent cells that more closely resemble those in embryos, both on a molecular and functional level.

• Article
  16 August 2023 | Open Access

  Transient naive reprogramming corrects hiPS cells functionally and epigenetically

  A new reprogramming strategy used to produce human induced pluripotent stem cells from somatic cells results in epigenetic and functional profiles that are highly similar to those of human embryonic stem cells.

  • Sam Buckberry
  • , Xiaodong Liu
  •  & Ryan Lister

• Research Briefing | 26 July 2023

  Salamanders’ regenerative potential might be driven by a specific protein variant

  Axolotls — aquatic salamanders with an exceptional regenerative ability — rapidly increase their production of proteins in response to wounds. An axolotl-specific evolutionary divergence in a key protein called mTOR might drive this protein response and thus the regenerative potential of these amphibians, with possible implications for improving healing in mammals.

• Article | 26 July 2023

  Evolutionarily divergent mTOR remodels translatome for tissue regeneration

  Rapid activation of protein synthesis in the axolotl highlights the unanticipated impact of a translatome on orchestrating the early steps of wound healing and provides a missing link in our understanding of vertebrate regenerative potential.

  • Olena Zhulyn
  • , Hannah D. Rosenblatt
  •  & Maria Barna

• Research Briefing | 19 July 2023

  Tissue-regeneration program underlies lung-cancer suppression

  How the protein p53 suppresses lung cancer, the most common cause of cancer deaths worldwide, has remained unclear. It has been found that p53 impedes the development of lung cancer by promoting a highly specific cell-differentiation program that is characteristic of normal tissue regeneration after an injury.

• Article | 19 July 2023

  KRAS(G12D) drives lepidic adenocarcinoma through stem-cell reprogramming

  A study identifies the AT1 cell as a cell of origin for lung adenocarcinoma, and demonstrates that expression of oncogenic KRAS in differentiated AT1 cells reprograms them back into AT2 stem cells that generate indolent lepidic tumours.

  • Nicholas H. Juul
  • , Jung-Ki Yoon
  •  & Tushar J. Desai

• Article | 12 July 2023

  Co-transplantation of autologous T_reg cells in a cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease

  In mouse and rat models of Parkinson’s disease, co-transplanting regulatory T cells (T_reg cells) improves the survival of grafted midbrain dopamine neurons in cell therapies by reducing the inflammatory response caused by surgical injury.

  • Tae-Yoon Park
  • , Jeha Jeon
  •  & Kwang-Soo Kim

• Article
  27 June 2023 | Open Access

  Pluripotent stem cell-derived model of the post-implantation human embryo

  Co-culture of wild-type human embryonic stem cells with two types of extraembryonic-like cell engineered to overexpress specific transcription factors results in an embryoid model that recapitulates multiple features of the post-implantation human embryo.

  • Bailey A. T. Weatherbee
  • , Carlos W. Gantner
  •  & Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz

• Article
  27 June 2023 | Open Access

  Self-patterning of human stem cells into post-implantation lineages

  Human pluripotent stem cells can be triggered to self-organize into structures recapitulating early human post-implantation embryonic development.

  • Monique Pedroza
  • , Seher Ipek Gassaloglu
  •  & Berna Sozen

• Article
  21 June 2023 | Open Access

  Signalling by senescent melanocytes hyperactivates hair growth

  Senescent melanocytes of skin nevi drive hyperactivation of hair growth through the signalling factor SPP1.

  • Xiaojie Wang
  • , Raul Ramos
  •  & Maksim V. Plikus

• Article
  07 June 2023 | Open Access

  Ultraviolet radiation shapes dendritic cell leukaemia transformation in the skin

  Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN) arises from clonal (premalignant) haematopoietic precursors in the bone marrow, and BPDCN skin tumours first develop at sun-exposed anatomical sites and are distinguished by clonally expanded mutations induced by ultraviolet radiation.

  • Gabriel K. Griffin
  • , Christopher A. G. Booth
  •  & Andrew A. Lane

• News & Views | 17 May 2023

  A step closer to making the mother of stem cells

  In the earliest stages of mammalian development, individual cells possess the unrestricted potential to form a new organism. Researchers are closing in on the goal of growing these cells in the laboratory.

  • Martin F. Pera

• Article | 17 May 2023

  Lysine catabolism reprograms tumour immunity through histone crotonylation

  Glioblastoma stem cells co-opt lysine uptake and degradation to shunt the production of crotonyl-CoA, remodelling the chromatin landscape to evade interferon-induced intrinsic effects on glioblastoma stem cell maintenance and extrinsic effects on immune response.

  • Huairui Yuan
  • , Xujia Wu
  •  & Jeremy N. Rich

• Article | 03 May 2023

  A phosphate-sensing organelle regulates phosphate and tissue homeostasis

  PXo bodies, non-canonical multilamellar organelles, serve as a reservoir for intracellular inorganic phosphate and are a critical regulator of both cytosolic phosphate levels and tissue homeostasis.

  • Chiwei Xu
  • , Jun Xu
  •  & Norbert Perrimon

• News & Views | 19 April 2023

  Yo-yoing stem cells defy dogma to maintain hair colour

  The observation that melanocyte stem cells migrate up and down the hair follicle, differentiating into melanocytes and then returning to a stem-cell identity, calls into question long-held assumptions about adult stem cells.

  • Carlos Galvan
  •  & William E. Lowry

• Article
  19 April 2023 | Open Access

  Dedifferentiation maintains melanocyte stem cells in a dynamic niche

  Local microenvironmental cues modulate melanocyte stem cells, which control hair pigmentation, to enter different differentiation states, shifting between hair follicle stem cell and transit-amplifying compartments, a process that is different to other self-renewing systems.

  • Qi Sun
  • , Wendy Lee
  •  & Mayumi Ito

• Article | 12 April 2023

  Aberrant activation of TCL1A promotes stem cell expansion in clonal haematopoiesis

  Using data from a single time point, passenger-approximated clonal expansion rate (PACER) estimates the fitness of common driver mutations that lead to clonal haematopoiesis and identifies TCL1A activation as a mediator of clonal expansion.

  • Joshua S. Weinstock
  • , Jayakrishnan Gopakumar
  •  & Siddhartha Jaiswal

• News | 06 April 2023

  Stem-cell-derived ‘embryos’ implanted in monkeys

  An embryo-like ball of cells offers a way to study pregnancy and its complications without the typical ethical dilemmas.

  • Gemma Conroy

• News & Views | 15 March 2023

  Eggs made from male mouse stem cells using error-prone culture

  A screen of mouse stem cells that exploits their propensity to gain or lose chromosomes in cell culture has been used to convert male XY to female XX cells. Subsequent differentiation generates functional eggs and live offspring.

  • Jonathan Bayerl
  •  & Diana J. Laird

• Article | 15 March 2023

  Generation of functional oocytes from male mice in vitro

  Mouse induced pluripotent stem cells derived from differentiated fibroblasts could be converted from male (XY) to female (XX), resulting in cells that could form oocytes and give rise to offspring after fertilization.

  • Kenta Murakami
  • , Nobuhiko Hamazaki
  •  & Katsuhiko Hayashi

• Outlook | 08 March 2023

  How organoids are advancing the understanding of chronic kidney disease

  Although complete human kidneys grown from scratch are many years away, organoids built from pluripotent stem cells are already helping to model the condition and suggest better treatments.

  • Eric Bender

• Research Highlight | 03 March 2023

  Mice grow ‘mini-antlers’ thanks to deers’ speedy stem cells

  The cells regenerate masses of bone and cartilage every year.

• Article | 22 February 2023

  Chemically defined cytokine-free expansion of human haematopoietic stem cells

  A culture system allows the long-term expansion of human haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in vivo without the use of recombinant cytokines or albumin, with potential applications for clinical therapies involving HSCs.

  • Masatoshi Sakurai
  • , Kantaro Ishitsuka
  •  & Satoshi Yamazaki

• Nature Careers Podcast | 04 February 2023

  Leadership in science: “There is nothing wrong with being wrong”

  Science is in good shape when its leaders can acknowledge things that go wrong, says Fiona Watt.

  • Julie Gould

• Research Highlight | 23 January 2023

  Supreme regenerative skills help sea spiders to regrow guts and more

  Other arthropods can regrow lost legs, but the sea spider can regenerate central organs all the way to the anus.

• Article | 18 January 2023

  Functional T cells are capable of supernumerary cell division and longevity

  Through iterative cycles of viral challenge and rechallenge over ten years, mouse T cells are demonstrated to have essentially infinite potential for population expansion and longevity without malignant transformation or loss of functional competence.

  • Andrew G. Soerens
  • , Marco Künzli
  •  & David Masopust

• Research Briefing | 04 January 2023

  Structural landscape inside cells mapped in detail

  More than 200,000 human stem cells were imaged at high resolution and in 3D to make a reference data set that was used to create a generalizable computational framework. This enables cell shapes and the locations of internal structures to be measured and compared using rigorous statistical methods.

• Article
  04 January 2023 | Open Access

  Integrated intracellular organization and its variations in human iPS cells

  A dataset of 3D images from more than 200,000 human induced pluripotent stem cells is used to develop a framework to analyse cell shape and the location and organization of major intracellular structures.

  • Matheus P. Viana
  • , Jianxu Chen
  •  & Susanne M. Rafelski

• Research Highlight | 03 January 2023

  Toes regrow with the help of these cells

  Cells at the base of the nail are key to regeneration of missing digit tips.

• Nature Video | 21 December 2022

  ‘Artificial embryos’: the hidden steps in forming a spine

  New models called axioloids offer insight into development of vertebrae in humans.

  • Dan Fox

• News & Views | 21 December 2022

  Senescent cells damage the body throughout life

  Cells in a state of arrested growth, called senescence, have been characterized in skeletal muscle in mice. Senescent cells promote inflammation and block regeneration, and thus might induce harmful changes in aged muscle.

  • David J. Glass

• Article | 21 December 2022

  Reconstruction and deconstruction of human somitogenesis in vitro

  Somitoids and segmentoids—culture systems that recapitulate the formation of somite-like structures—reveal that an initial salt-and-pepper expression pattern of MESP2 in a newly formed segment is transformed into compartments of anterior and posterior identity through an active cell-sorting mechanism.

  • Yuchuan Miao
  • , Yannis Djeffal
  •  & Olivier Pourquié

• Article
  21 December 2022 | Open Access

  Senescence atlas reveals an aged-like inflamed niche that blunts muscle regeneration

  A lifetime cartography of in vivo senescent cells shows that they are heterogeneous. Senescent cells create an aged-like inflamed niche that mirrors inflammation associated with ageing and arrests stem cell proliferation and tissue regeneration.

  • Victoria Moiseeva
  • , Andrés Cisneros
  •  & Pura Muñoz-Cánoves