Monday, June 11, 2007

Making new teeth

Source: Public Library of Science
Date: June 11, 2007

Summary:

Although mammals have a limited capacity to regenerate teeth, mouse incisors contain stem cells and grow continuously throughout life. Using a combination of mouse mutant analyses, organ culture experiments, and gene expression studies, Xiu-Ping Wang and colleagues identify the key signaling molecules that regulate epithelial stem cell proliferation in the stem cell niche. Their work is published online this week in the open-access journal PLoS Biology.