What is it about?
Dedifferentiation is the process by which mature cells are reprogrammed back to a stem cell state, to maintain a healthy stem cell population. In this paper, we used the fruit fly ovary to show that during dedifferentiation, cells extend finger-like protrusions, called cytonemes, to access the BMP stem cell signal from specialised cells that form the stem cell niche. Blocking the formation of these cytonemes is detrimental to dedifferentiation, resulting in loss of the stem cell population and infertility.
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Why is it important?
A key aim of regenerative medicine is to be able to reprogram patient cells to replace those affected by disease. Here we identify cytonemes as a potential target for strategies aimed at improving stem cell fitness or cell reprogramming, which has huge therapeutic potential for the regeneration of damaged tissues.
Perspectives
Cell communication must be tightly controlled to ensure only the right cells receive key signals and that they can receive and interpret these signals correctly. Cytonemes provide a means of controlling this, both over great distances and in neighbouring niches. The future development of more targeted ways of regulating cytoneme biology will open new avenues for regenerative therapeutics targeting stem cell biology.
Hilary Ashe
University of Manchester
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ovarian germline stem cell dedifferentiation is cytoneme dependent, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2426145122.
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