title: Identifying niche-mediated regulatory factors of stem cell phenotypic state: a systems biology approach.
abstract: Understanding how the cellular niche controls the stem cell phenotype is often hampered due to the complexity of variegated niche composition, its dynamics, and nonlinear stem cell-niche interactions. Here, we propose a systems biology view that considers stem cell-niche interactions as a many-body problem amenable to simplification by the concept of mean field approximation. This enables approximation of the niche effect on stem cells as a constant field that induces sustained activation/inhibition of specific stem cell signaling pathways in all stem cells within heterogeneous populations exhibiting the same phenotype (niche determinants). This view offers a new basis for the development of single cell-based computational approaches for identifying niche determinants, which has potential applications in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.
authors.affiliation: Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: Srikanth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ravichandran
authors.affiliation: Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Del Sol
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D010641:Phenotype; D044968:Regenerative Medicine; D055153:Stem Cell Niche; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D049490:Systems Biology
keywords: niche determinants; stem cell niche; systems biology