and maintaining tissue homeostasis in adults. Their unique ability to replicate and differentiate into specialized cells holds great promise in treating diseases like Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and type I diabetes by replacing damaged or diseased cells with healthy ones.
Now, a team led by Prof. Xie Ting, Head and Chair Professor of HKUST's Division of Life Science, has discovered for the first time, that the niche uses to transport its cAMP into stem cell progeny to control their differentiation. cAMP is one of the most important secondary messengers in the cell to regulate many cellular functions, including stem cell differentiation.
Prof. Xie, who is also Kerry Holdings Professor of Science, used the Drosophila ovary as an experimental model to study how two niches control stem cell self-renewal and differentiation, respectively.