Adult stem cells Flashcards
Why have adult stem cells?
- Cells in the body die due to mild damage/ injury
- So there must be cells within the tissues to regenerate these cells
What are the characteristics of adult stem cells?
- Multipotent
- Tissue specific
- Build and repair tissue
- Difficult to isolate maintain in vitro
Where can adult stem cells also be derived from?
Foetal tissue
What must stem cells do in order to repair tissues?
1) Supply large numbers of differentiated cells
2) Protect themselves from accumulating mutations
3) Stop themselves from aging
Why is it important to limit the number of cell divisions of an adult stem cell?
- Adult stem cells have much lower levels of telomerase than ES cells
- Therefore, with each DNA replication, telomeres willl shorten until the cells age, when chromosomes begin to be eroded
What are telomeres?
- Repetitive DNA sequence (TTAGGG)
- Cap the ends of linear chromosome
- Buffer, get eroded instead of genes
Describe the generic adult stem cell model
1) Quiescent stem cell undergoes one asymmetrical division into a transit stem cell when damage occurs
2) Transit stem cell enters the cell cycle and expands to produce progenitor cells
3) Progenitor cells expand to give differentiated derivatives
What are the advantages of the adult stem cell model?
- Limits the number of divisions that the ASC has to make
- Protecting the ASC against gaining mutations and aging
What are the implications of the ASC model?
- Cells flow through in a unidirectional manner
- Differentiation becomes resticted
- Ordered and irreversible fate decisions
Why doesn’t the generic ASC model apply to ALL adult stem cell models?
1) Not all adult stem cells are multipotent
2) Not all ASCs are quiescent
3) Flow through hierarchy is not always unidirectional
Example of ASCs which are not multipotent?
1) Epidermal basal cells
- Only make keratinocytes
- UNIPOTENT
2) Germ cells
Examples of ASCs which are not quiescent
1) Interstianal crypt
- Stem cells at the base continuously dividing
- Leading to transit amplifying cells
What does quiescent mean?
Have a period of inactivity/ dormancy
Examples of ASCs where the flow through the hierarchy is not unidirectional?
Trachea
- Damage can cause the loss of basal stem cells
- The ‘differentiated’ clara cells above the basal layer can infill and DEDIFFERENTIATE into basal stem cells
- Basal stem cells then form a clonal patch of cells, reforming the basal layer
What are CBC cells and what do they give rise to?
- Crypt base columnar cells
- The long term stem cells of the small intestinal crypt-villus unit, which continuously differentiate
- Give rise to enterocytes, goblet cells, paneth cells, enteroendocrine cells