Pluripotency Genes and Their Functions in the Normal and Aberrant Breast and Brain

Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) attracted considerable interest with the successful isolation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from the inner cell mass of murine, primate and human embryos. Whilst it was initially thought that the only PSCs were ESCs, in more recent years cells with similar properties h...

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Main Authors:	Seymour, Tracy, Twigger, Alecia-Jane, Kakulas, Foteini
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	MDPI 2015
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4661882/

id	pubmed-4661882
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-46618822015-12-10 Pluripotency Genes and Their Functions in the Normal and Aberrant Breast and Brain Seymour, Tracy Twigger, Alecia-Jane Kakulas, Foteini Review Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) attracted considerable interest with the successful isolation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from the inner cell mass of murine, primate and human embryos. Whilst it was initially thought that the only PSCs were ESCs, in more recent years cells with similar properties have been isolated from organs of the adult, including the breast and brain. Adult PSCs in these organs have been suggested to be remnants of embryonic development that facilitate normal tissue homeostasis during repair and regeneration. They share certain characteristics with ESCs, such as an inherent capacity to self-renew and differentiate into cells of the three germ layers, properties that are regulated by master pluripotency transcription factors (TFs) OCT4 (octamer-binding transcription factor 4), SOX2 (sex determining region Y-box 2), and homeobox protein NANOG. Aberrant expression of these TFs can be oncogenic resulting in heterogeneous tumours fueled by cancer stem cells (CSC), which are resistant to conventional treatments and are associated with tumour recurrence post-treatment. Further to enriching our understanding of the role of pluripotency TFs in normal tissue function, research now aims to develop optimized isolation and propagation methods for normal adult PSCs and CSCs for the purposes of regenerative medicine, developmental biology, and disease modeling aimed at targeted personalised cancer therapies. MDPI 2015-11-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4661882/ /pubmed/26580604 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms161126024 Text en © 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Seymour, Tracy Twigger, Alecia-Jane Kakulas, Foteini
spellingShingle	Seymour, Tracy Twigger, Alecia-Jane Kakulas, Foteini Pluripotency Genes and Their Functions in the Normal and Aberrant Breast and Brain
author_facet	Seymour, Tracy Twigger, Alecia-Jane Kakulas, Foteini
author_sort	Seymour, Tracy
title	Pluripotency Genes and Their Functions in the Normal and Aberrant Breast and Brain
title_short	Pluripotency Genes and Their Functions in the Normal and Aberrant Breast and Brain
title_full	Pluripotency Genes and Their Functions in the Normal and Aberrant Breast and Brain
title_fullStr	Pluripotency Genes and Their Functions in the Normal and Aberrant Breast and Brain
title_full_unstemmed	Pluripotency Genes and Their Functions in the Normal and Aberrant Breast and Brain
title_sort	pluripotency genes and their functions in the normal and aberrant breast and brain
description	Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) attracted considerable interest with the successful isolation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from the inner cell mass of murine, primate and human embryos. Whilst it was initially thought that the only PSCs were ESCs, in more recent years cells with similar properties have been isolated from organs of the adult, including the breast and brain. Adult PSCs in these organs have been suggested to be remnants of embryonic development that facilitate normal tissue homeostasis during repair and regeneration. They share certain characteristics with ESCs, such as an inherent capacity to self-renew and differentiate into cells of the three germ layers, properties that are regulated by master pluripotency transcription factors (TFs) OCT4 (octamer-binding transcription factor 4), SOX2 (sex determining region Y-box 2), and homeobox protein NANOG. Aberrant expression of these TFs can be oncogenic resulting in heterogeneous tumours fueled by cancer stem cells (CSC), which are resistant to conventional treatments and are associated with tumour recurrence post-treatment. Further to enriching our understanding of the role of pluripotency TFs in normal tissue function, research now aims to develop optimized isolation and propagation methods for normal adult PSCs and CSCs for the purposes of regenerative medicine, developmental biology, and disease modeling aimed at targeted personalised cancer therapies.
publisher	MDPI
publishDate	2015
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4661882/
_version_	1613506928558735360

Pluripotency Genes and Their Functions in the Normal and Aberrant Breast and Brain

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