Source: Rice University
Date: May 7, 2010
Summary:
With thousands of scientists across the globe searching for ways to use adult stem cells to fight disease, there's a growing emphasis on finding the "master regulators" that guide the differentiation of stem cells. New research from Rice University and the University of Cambridge suggests that a closely connected trio of regulatory proteins fulfills that role in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), the self-renewing cells the body uses to make new blood cells. The results appear today in the online journal PLoS Computational Biology. Working with experimentalists at Cambridge, Rice bioengineers Oleg Igoshin and Jatin Narula created a computer model that accurately describes the observed behavior of the three regulatory proteins that are collectively known as the "Scl-Gata2-Fli1 triad."
