Regulation of muscle stem cells in their niche: juggling external and internal cues

Little information is available on how stem cells acquire their special properties. A team from the Institut Pasteur has described a signalling pathway (Notch/COLV/CALCR) that proposes a new view on how muscle stem cells are retained in their local microenvironment (niche).
Stem cells play critical roles during growth, regeneration and ageing. Although they possess special features that allow them to self-renew and give rise to differentiating daughter cells, how external and internal cues interplay to confer these special properties to stem cells remains largely unexplored. The local microenvironment (niche) is an essential regulator of stem cell behaviour and it can be of cellular and non-cellular nature.

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Read the report on stem cells in the Research Journal