title: Asymmetric stem cell division and pathology: insights from Drosophila stem cell systems.
abstract: Adult stem cells maintain many tissues and organs throughout the life of an organism by serving as renewable sources of differentiated cells. While stem cells remain in a relatively undifferentiated state, their daughters can commit to differentiation to acquire distinct cell fates. Therefore, a stem cell's choice between self-renewal and commitment to differentiation is of critical importance to the maintenance of functional tissues and organs. Many adult stem cells can divide asymmetrically to produce one self-renewed stem cell and one differentiated daughter, preserving the critical balance between stem cell and differentiated cell populations. Stem cell dysfunction and/or malfunction have been proposed to lead to several human pathologies, including tumourigenesis and tissue degeneration, yet whether a failure of asymmetric division is a primary cause of stem cell-related pathologies remains largely uninvestigated. Here, I discuss the implications of asymmetric stem cell division in pathology.
authors.affiliation: Life Sciences Institute, Center for Stem Cell Biology, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. yukikomy@umich.edu
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yamashita
mesh_terms: D053687:Adult Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D002455:Cell Division; D004330:Drosophila / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D023421:Models, Animal; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D014157:Transcription Factors