Response of Pluripotent Stem Cells to Environmental Stresses

A special issue of Biology (ISSN 2079-7737). This special issue belongs to the section "Medical Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 3550

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Molecular Physiology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto 860-0862, Japan
Interests: stem cells; stress response; neuroscience; neurodevelopmental disorders; protein synthesis; gene expression; Trp channels; pancreatic development
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Guest Editor
Scientist I, Biogen Pharmaceuticals, MA, USA
Interests: stem cell biology; neuroscience; gene therapy; analytical development; CRISPR-Cas9; bioassay development

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Guest Editor
Department of Pharmacy, Brac University, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
Interests: cancer biology; stem cells; alternate lengthening of telomeres; gene expression; pancreatic development; protein synthesis; protein drug development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) as embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), the characteristics as epigenetic state, gene expression profiles, and the cellular localization of  proteins are quite different from differentiated and somatic cells. Due to such differences, the response to environmental stimuli and stresses as hypoxic, heat, and oxidative stress and chemicals, some ligands of channels and receptors etc is also different between PSCs and differentiated cells. For example, PSCs are highly sensitive to proteotoxic stress by MG132 and the levels of stress-responsive transcription factors change during differentiation.

In this special issue, we would like to focus on such difference and the mechanism of it. By clarifying it, we can know the characteristics of stress response of PSCs and set up the differentiation protocol to somatic tissues by considering it. Furthermore, it could serve an useful information for the research on toxicology of chemicals in embryos and on iPSC-derived stress-related disease model like neurodegenerative diseases.

In this special issue, we invite the original research articles and reviews on the following subjects: (1) the molecular mechanism of the response to any stresses in stem cells; (2) the implication of stress response in stemness and differentiation; (3) iPSC-derived stress-ralated disease models and their stress response; (4) toxicology in embryonic stem cells.

Dr. Taku Kaitsuka
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Stem cells
  • Stress response
  • Differentiation
  • Heat stress
  • Hypoxic stress
  • Oxidative stress
  • Proteotoxic stress

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

16 pages, 1215 KiB  
Review
Response of Pluripotent Stem Cells to Environmental Stress and Its Application for Directed Differentiation
by Taku Kaitsuka and Farzana Hakim
Biology 2021, 10(2), 84; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/biology10020084 - 23 Jan 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2972
Abstract
Pluripotent stem cells have unique characteristics compared to somatic cells. In this review, we summarize the response to environmental stresses (hypoxic, oxidative, thermal, and mechanical stresses) in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and their applications in the differentiation methods directed to specific lineages. Those [...] Read more.
Pluripotent stem cells have unique characteristics compared to somatic cells. In this review, we summarize the response to environmental stresses (hypoxic, oxidative, thermal, and mechanical stresses) in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and their applications in the differentiation methods directed to specific lineages. Those stresses lead to activation of each specific transcription factor followed by the induction of downstream genes, and one of them regulates lineage specification. In short, hypoxic stress promotes the differentiation of ESCs to mesodermal lineages via HIF-1α activation. Concerning mechanical stress, high stiffness tends to promote mesodermal differentiation, while low stiffness promotes ectodermal differentiation via the modulation of YAP1. Furthermore, each step in the same lineage differentiation favors each appropriate stiffness of culture plate; for example, definitive endoderm favors high stiffness, while pancreatic progenitor favors low stiffness during pancreatic differentiation of human ESCs. Overall, treatments utilizing those stresses have no genotoxic or carcinogenic effects except oxidative stress; therefore, the differentiated cells are safe and could be useful for cell replacement therapy. In particular, the effect of mechanical stress on differentiation is becoming attractive for the field of regenerative medicine. Therefore, the development of a stress-mediated differentiation protocol is an important matter for the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Response of Pluripotent Stem Cells to Environmental Stresses)
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