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Cancer-causing Gene Crucial in Stem Cell Development

by Kathy Jones on September 04, 2010 at 8:26 PM Genetics & Stem Cells News

All multi-cellular organisms have stem cells, which can turn into a dazzling variety of other cells—kidney, brain, heart or skin.

Cancer-causing Gene Crucial in Stem Cell Development

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One class, pluripotent stem cells, has the capacity to turn into virtually any cell type in the body, making them a focal point in the development of cell therapies, the conquering of age-old diseases or even regrowing defective body parts.

Now, a research team at the University of Georgia has shown for the first time that a gene called Myc (pronounced "mick") may be far more important in the development and persistence of stem cells than was known before. Myc is traditionally thought of as a cancer-causing gene, or oncogene, but recent studies from the UGA team have established critical roles for it in stem cell biology. The discovery has important implications for the basic understanding of developmental processes and how stem cells can be used for therapeutic purposes.

"This new research has uncovered a really unexpected role for Myc," said Stephen Dalton, GRA Eminent Scholar of Molecular Cell Biology and Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scientist at UGA. "Our work here represents the first mechanistic characterization of how Myc controls the pluripotent stem cell state."

The research was published today in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Other authors of the paper include Keriayn Smith and Amar Singh of the Dalton lab at UGA. Smith left recently to begin a postdoc at the University of North Carolina. Dalton also is a member of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and is affiliated with the UGA Cancer Center and the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute.

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Cancer-causing Gene Crucial in Stem Cell Development

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