September 2nd, Professor Liu Lijun of College of Life and Health Sciences，Northeastern University， together with Professor Piotr Sicinski of Department of Cancer Biology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, published a review article on international top journal Nature Cell Biology, titled The Cell Cycle in Stem Cell Proliferation, Pluripotency and Differentiation. It is a new milestone for Northeastern University that faculties publish articles on Nature series journals.
According to the article, cyclins, cyclin-dependent kinases and other components of the core cell cycle machinery drive cell division. Growing evidence indicates that this machinery operates in a distinct fashion in some mammalian stem cell types, such as pluripotent embryonic stem cells. The article discussed the current knowledge of how cell cycle proteins mechanistically link cell proliferation, pluripotency and cell fate specification, focusing on embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic neural stem/progenitor cells. Exploring life activities in stem cells from the perspective of cell cycle research will play an important role in the research and application of stem cells.
