What does the concept of the stem cell niche really mean today?

Arthur Lander (1) , Judith Kimble (2) , Hans Clevers (3) , Elaine Fuchs (4) , Didier Montarras (5) , Margaret Buckingham (6) , Anne Calof (7) , Andreas Trumpp (8, 9) , Thordur Oskarsson (9)

1 Center for Complex Biological Systems
2 341E Biochemistry Addition
3 Hubrecht Institute
4 HHMI - Howard Hughes Medical Institute
5 Département de Biologie du Développement
6 Génétique Moléculaire du Développement
7 Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology
8 Divison of Stem Cells and Cancer
9 HI-STEM - Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine

Ideas about stem cells, and how they behave, have been undergoing a lot of change in recent years, thanks to developments in visualizing, monitoring, and manipulating cells and tissues. Curious to find out what impact these changes are having on one of the most enduring and widely accepted metaphors in stem cell biology - the idea of the stem cell niche - BMC Biology asked researchers working on a variety of systems to write about their current conception of what a stem cell niche really is.

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Arthur Lander, Judith Kimble, Hans Clevers, Elaine Fuchs, Didier Montarras, et al.. What does the concept of the stem cell niche really mean today?. BMC Biology, 2012, 10 (1), pp.19. ⟨10.1186/1741-7007-10-19⟩. ⟨pasteur-00677814⟩