Characterisation and culture of neuromesodermal stem cells

脊椎和脊髓是在胚胎发育过程中由一组被称为轴向祖细胞的细胞组成的，这些细胞类似于干细胞。干细胞有两个基本属性：它们可以分裂，提供更多的自我复制；它们可以在一个称为分化的过程中产生特定类型的细胞。在某些实验条件下，轴向祖细胞可以表现为干细胞，但通常情况下，它们只存在于脊柱和脊髓形成期间，然后它们就会死亡。我们的目标是了解是什么分子使它们分裂、分化和死亡，这一知识将帮助我们设计条件，使它们在培养中作为干细胞存活。与胚胎干细胞不同，这些细胞在移植到成年小鼠体内时不会形成恶性肿瘤，因此轴系祖细胞可能是治疗涉及脊髓、骨骼和肌肉的退行性疾病和损伤的有用细胞类型。

The backbone and spinal cord are made during embryo development from a group of cells called axial progenitors that are similar to stem cells. Stem cells have two essential properties: they can divide to give more copies of themselves, and they can produce specialised cell types in a process called differentiation. Axial progenitors can be made to behave like stem cells under some experimental conditions, but normally they are only present during the time that the backbone and spinal cord are being made, and then they die. We aim to understand what molecules make them divide, differentiate and die, and this knowledge will help us to design conditions to keep them alive as stem cells in culture. Unlike Embryonic Stem cells, these cells do not form malignant tumours when transplanted into adult mice, and so axial progenitors may therefore be a useful therapeutic cell type for degenerative diseases and injuries involving the spinal cord, bone and muscle.