An increasing number of comprehensive genetic fate mapping studies have demonstrated that pericytes are the main progenitors renal scar-forming myofibroblasts, and contribute in poor repair acute kidney injury progression to chronic disease. Following unilateral ureteral obstruction, injured epithelial cells primarily secreted TGF-β1, which could then trigger pericyte-myofibroblast transition (...

Elevated glucocorticoid levels result in the transdifferentiation of pancreatic acinar cells into hepatocytes through a process that requires a transient repression of WNT signalling upstream of the induction of C/EBP-β. However, the mechanism by which glucocorticoid interacts with WNT signalling is unknown. A screen of microarray data showed that the serine/threonine protein kinase SGK1 (serum...

The retina regenerates from retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells by transdifferentiation in the adult newt and Xenopus laevis when it is surgically removed. This was studied under a novel culture condition, and we succeeded, for the first time, in developing a complete retinal laminar structure from a single epithelial sheet of RPE. We cultured a Xenopus RPE monolayer sheet isolated from the ...

BACKGROUND Cell fate is fluid and may be altered experimentally by the forced expression of master regulators mediating cell lineage. Such reprogramming has been achieved with the use of viral vectors encoding transcription factors. We recently discovered that the viral vectors are more than passive vehicles for transcription factors because they participate actively in the process of nuclear r...

The definition of stem cell is “an unspecialized cell that gives rise to a specific specialized cell, such as a blood cell”. Stem Cell is the original of life. All cells come from stem cells. Serving as a repair system for the living body, the stem cells can divide without limit to replenish other cells as long as the living body is still alive. When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the p...

OBJECTIVE To down-regulate expression of mRNA for the platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR)-α, block the signalling pathway of PDGF and its receptor, and study their influence on fibroblast transdifferentiation to myofibroblasts in systemic sclerosis (SSc). METHODS Fibroblasts from skin lesions of SSc patients and health adult controls were cultured in vitro, and α-smooth muscle act...

Astrocytes are promising source cells to replace neurons lost disease owing a shared lineage and capacities for dedifferentiation proliferation under pathological conditions. Reprogramming of astrocytes has been achieved by transcription factor modulation, but reprogramming in vitro or vivo using small‐molecule drugs may have several advantages clinical application. For instance, small molecule...