Patient-derived skeletal dysplasia induced pluripotent stem cells display abnormal chondrogenic marker expression and regulation by BMP2 and TGFβ1.

Skeletal dysplasias (SDs) are caused by abnormal chondrogenesis during cartilage growth plate differentiation. To study early stages of aberrant cartilage formation in vitro, we generated the first induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from fibroblasts of an SD patient with a lethal form of metatropic dysplasia, caused by a dominant mutation (I604M) in the calcium channel gene TRPV4. When micromasses were grown in chondrogenic differentiation conditions and compared with control iPSCs, mutant TRPV4-iPSCs showed significantly (P<0.

Functional analysis of microRNAs in human hepatocellular cancer stem cells.

MicroRNAs are endogenous small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression and cancer development. A rare population of hepatocellular cancer stem cells (HSCs) holds the extensive proliferative and self-renewal potential necessary to form a liver tumour. We postulated that specific transcriptional factors might regulate the expression of microRNAs and subsequently modulate the expression of gene products involved in phenotypic characteristics of HSCs.

Resveratrol inhibits pancreatic cancer stem cell characteristics in human and KrasG12D transgenic mice by inhibiting pluripotency maintaining factors and epithelial-mesenchymal transition.

Background: Cancer stem cells (CSCs) can proliferate and self-renew extensively due to their ability to express anti-apoptotic and drug resistant proteins, thus sustaining tumor growth. Therefore, the strategy to eradicate CSCs might have significant clinical implications. The objectives of this study were to examine the molecular mechanisms by which resveratrol inhibits stem cell characteristics of pancreatic CSCs derived from human primary tumors and Kras(G12D) transgenic mice.