Fly stem cell research gets infectious.
To maintain tissue homeostasis, stem cells need to increase their proliferation rate to repair tissue damage caused by stress or infection. In this issue, Jiang et al. (2009) describe a regulatory feedback mechanism involving the Jak/Stat signaling pathway that enables stem cells of the fly midgut to accomplish this task.
Conder
Ryan
R
Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), 1030 Vienna, Austria.
Knoblich
Juergen A
JA
D000818:Animals; D004330:Drosophila / Q000166:cytology / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology*; D015398:Signal Transduction; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology