Organoids provide a platform for recapitulating and exploring development, and synthetic biology offers a toolbox to genetically manipulate cell communication, adhesion, and even cell fate. Using...

Cancer stemness, regarded as a crucial factor in tumor development, has been recognized to involve a plastic cellular state influenced by dynamic interactions between cancer stem cells (CSCs) and...

In this review, Peng Du and Jun Wu present a detailed overview of the growth conditions, molecular characteristics, and functional attributes of totipotent and pluripotent stem cells generated...

In this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Yoo et al.1 report that replacing Trem2 knockout microglia with Trem2 wild-type microglia-like cells derived from systemically transplanted hematopoietic cells...

In recent decades, metabolic adaptations emerged as a mechanism by which pluripotent and tissue stem cell fate decisions are regulated. In this review, Jackson and Finley describe the common themes...

Stem cell function is defined by their capacity to replace lost tissue through division. Beumer and Clevers put forth a set of six complementary hallmarks that are key enabling features of this...

Poorly regenerative organs deposit scar tissue to mend damage. Aggarwal et al. establish that transient Sox9 activity is necessary for early proximal tubule epithelial regeneration, while Trogisch...

Zhang et al. show that the mechanical properties of a three-dimensional (3D) hydrogel can enhance the secretion of niche factors from bone marrow stromal cells, which in turn promotes the maintenance...

Lau and colleagues generated an in vitro mouse embryo model with embryonic and extraembryonic lineages using exclusively embryonic stem cells and showed that the embryoids can undergo advanced...

Cai and collaborators developed an extensive single-cell atlas of regeneration in eight representative tissues, illuminating aging-related regenerative decline across tissues. This study offers a...

In this review, Peng Du and Jun Wu present a detailed overview of the growth conditions, molecular characteristics, and functional attributes of totipotent and pluripotent stem cells generated...

The mechanisms that link pro-obesity high-fat diets (HFDs) to increased colon cancer risk are not well understood. Beyaz and colleagues demonstrate that a HFD promotes intestinal tumor initiation by...

Exploring the early stages of human embryonic development poses significant difficulties owing to ethical and technical limitations. Two recent studies in Nature report the self-organization of human...

Mechanobiology studies utilize biomaterials to closely mimic the mechanics of in vivo tissues. Atcha et al. discuss key mechanical properties of tissues mimicked by biomaterials and their impacts on...

Cai and collaborators developed an extensive single-cell atlas of regeneration in eight representative tissues, illuminating aging-related regenerative decline across tissues. This study offers a...

Increasing reports show neurological symptoms in COVID-19 patients, but it is still unclear whether SARS-CoV-2 can directly damage neurons. Lancaster and colleagues investigate viral neurotropism...

Organoids are a powerful 3D culture model derived from adult or pluripotent stem cells that can recapitulate the morphology, molecular diversity, genomic landscape, and heterogeneity of patient...

Liu et al. generate a transcriptomic single-cell atlas of skeletal muscle, neural and hematopoietic stem cells, and their niche environment and progeny during aging and in response to exercise....

Jing et al. performed genome-wide CRISPRa screening, pinpointing SOX5 as a potent rejuvenator of senescent human cells. Through epigenetic and transcriptional remodeling, SOX5 activates HMGB2,...

Chen et al. identify TGFB1 as a key facilitator of intestinal regeneration, revealing that TGFB1 is sufficient to induce epithelial cells to acquire a fetal-like state typical of regenerating...

The preservation of adult stem cell identity following cell division is essential for sustained tissue maintenance and repair. Will, Kao, and colleagues identify iron as a crucial regulator allowing...

Certain structural elements of Sox17 could enhance Sox2’s ability to generate iPSCs by stabilizing Sox2/Oct4 dimerization on regulatory DNA elements that control pluripotency. This study highlights...

Duan et al. developed a panel of isogenic murine pancreatic organoids containing common PDAC driver mutations to screen for KRAS mutation inhibitors and identified that perhexiline maleate can target...

Nazim et al. investigate the molecular mechanisms and functional consequences of an alternative splicing switch in the chromatin modifier, DPF2. The study reveals that the developmental switch from...

Non-coding mutations over a megabase from SOX9 cause the craniofacial disorder Pierre Robin sequence (PRS). Long et al. leverage a human neural crest model to demonstrate that PRS is caused by loss...

Zhang et al. perform in toto live imaging to examine the dynamics of fluid flow forces in the mouse blastocyst cavity, and by using klf2 as a reporter of fluid flow forces, they provide a resource...

Leone, Gelati, and colleagues assessed the intracerebroventricular injection (ICVI) of allogeneic human neural stem/progenitor cells (hNSCs) for the treatment of progressive multiple sclerosis. The...

Cortés-López and colleagues develop GoT-Splice for the concurrent profiling of gene expression, surface proteins, somatic mutations, and RNA splicing in individual cells. By utilizing this method,...

Ito et al. investigate the mechanism by which mitochondrial metabolism controls hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) fate. They reveal that FAO (fatty acid oxidation)-generated NADPH fuels cholesterol...

Small molecule-induced cell fate transitions are characterized by low efficiency and slow kinetics. An optimized chemical reprogramming approach now facilitates the robust and rapid conversion of...

By using a chemical cocktail to remodel the pericentromeric heterochromatin and re-establish a totipotent-specific H3K4me3 landscape, Wang and colleagues establish a totipotent-like stem cell line...

Banjac et al. review the mechanisms behind homeostasis and regeneration in the epidermis, hematopoietic system, and intestinal epithelium with an emphasis on tissue stem cells. They highlight key...

Using an isogenic organoid platform to model pancreatic cancer, Duan et al. establish an important link between mutant KRAS and cholesterol metabolism and identify perhexiline maleate as a possible...

Using integrated analysis of single-cell transcriptomic, proteomic, and tissue ultrastructural data, Mascharak, Talbott, Januszyk, et al. define divergent molecular trajectories of scarring versus...

Regenerating the lungs’ architecture after injury requires rebuilding its fibroelastic extracellular matrix scaffold. Konkimalla et al. establish that regenerative cell states (RCSs) of both epithe...

Despite advances in stem cell cultures, modeling early human development with stem cells in a dish remains challenging. Research by Hislop et al., Okubo et al., and Wei et al. paves the way for...

Large-scale sequencing studies have identified hundreds of autism-associated genes, yet a systematic understanding of their functional consequences during human neurodevelopment remains elusive....

Deriving a large number of hiPSC-cardiomyocytes would be beneficial for large-scale tissue engineering and drug screening applications. Buikema et al. show that GSK-3β inhibition combined with...

Our “microglia report card” reveals that human microglia selectively regulate different biological gene cluster modules in an environment-dependent fashion. The presence of microglia in brain...

Aghazadeh et al. show that transplantation of adipose-derived microvessels in the subcutaneous space supports early connection to the host vasculature, promoting engraftment and function of either...

Meistermann et al. use scRNA-seq, pseudotime analysis, and immunofluorescence validation to reconstruct the sequence of molecular events occurring in time-lapse-staged human preimplantation embryos....

Reliable stem cell models of the early embryo would open new approaches to studying human development and infertility. Yanagida and colleagues used naive stem cells to generate human blastocyst-like...

In a scientific first, researchers at the Gladstone Institutes turned skin cells from mice into stem cells by activating a specific gene in the cells using CRISPR technology. The innovative approach...

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN) drops in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and correlates with cognitive status in AD patients. We discuss the significance of the multicellular complexity of the AHN...

Chen et al. identify TGFB1 as a key facilitator of intestinal regeneration, revealing that TGFB1 is sufficient to induce epithelial cells to acquire a fetal-like state typical of regenerating...

Velten and colleagues develop CloneTracer, a computational method to identify clones in single-cell RNA-seq data. Applied to immature cells from 19 acute myeloid leukemia patients, CloneTracer shows...

Guilbaud et al. show that hijacking the defective cholesterol efflux pathways observed in lung epithelial tumor progenitor cells can transcriptionally reprogram outgrowth, survival instructions, and...

Lineage specification during human peri-implantation development remains poorly understood. Rostovskaya et al. discovered that in primate embryos the amnion is formed in two transcriptionally and...

Schrepfer and colleagues engineered hypoimmune (B2M−/−, CIITA−/−, CD47+) primary rhesus macaque pseudo-islets. They were transplanted into a fully allogeneic, immunocompetent, diabetic, and insulin...

Jing et al. performed genome-wide CRISPRa screening, pinpointing SOX5 as a potent rejuvenator of senescent human cells. Through epigenetic and transcriptional remodeling, SOX5 activates HMGB2,...

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) can be harnessed to capture the heterogeneous tissue-specific characteristics of endothelial cells (ECs) toward disease models and therapeutics. This review...

Múnera, Kechele, and colleagues report the generation of pluripotent stem cell (PSC)-derived human colonic organoids (HCOs) with co-developing macrophages resembling resident macrophages in the human...