Lgr5 was identified as a promising gastrointestinal tract stem cell marker in mice. Lineage tracing indicates that Lgr5(+) cells may not only be the cells responsible for the origin of tumors; they may also be the so-called cancer stem cells. In the present study, we investigated the presence of Lgr5(+) cells and their biological significance in normal human gastric mucosa and gastric tumors. R...

Recent advance of sequencing technology has revealed genetic alterations in colorectal cancer (CRC). The biological function of recurrently mutated genes has been intensively investigated through mouse genetic models and CRC cell lines. Although these experimental models may not fully reflect biological traits of human intestinal epithelium, they provided insights into the understanding of inte...

Lgr5+ adult intestinal stem cells are highly proliferative throughout life. Single Lgr5+ stem cells can be cultured into three-dimensional organoids containing all intestinal epithelial cell types at near-normal ratios. Conditions to generate the main cell types (enterocyte, goblet cells, Paneth cells, and M cells) are well established, but signals to induce the spectrum of hormone-producing en...

Disruption of the intestinal epithelial barrier allows bacterial translocation and predisposes to destructive inflammation. To ensure proper barrier composition, crypt-residing stem cells continuously proliferate and replenish all intestinal epithelial cells within days. As a consequence of this high mitotic activity, mucosal surfaces are frequently targeted by anticancer therapies, leading to ...

BACKGROUND Canonical Wnt pathway signaling is necessary for maintaining the proliferative capacity of mammalian intestinal crypt base columnar stem cells (CBCs). Furthermore, dysregulation of the Wnt pathway is a major contributor to disease, including oncogenic transformation of the intestinal epithelium. Given the critical importance of this pathway, numerous tools have been used as proxy mea...

Knock out of intestinal Cdx2 produces different effects depending upon the developmental stage at which this occurs. Early in development it produces histologically ordered stomach mucosa in the midgut. Conditional inactivation of Cdx2 in adult intestinal epithelium, as well as specifically in the Lgr5-positive stem cells, of adult mice allows long-term survival of the animals but fails to prod...

background nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (nafld) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in western world. however, nafld shows an increasing trend in china every year, which has attracted the attention of national health authorities. the previous studies have shown that nafld caused severe gastrointestinal motor disorders, but little is known about the interstitial cells of cajal ...

Recently, a stochastic model of symmetrical stem cell division followed by neutral drift has been proposed for intestinal stem cells (ISCs), which has been suggested to represent the predominant mode of stem cell progression in mammals. In contrast, stem cells in the retina of teleost fish show an asymmetric division mode. To address whether the mode of stem cell division follows phylogenetic o...

Crypt epithelial survival and regeneration after injury require highly coordinated complex interplay between resident stem cells and diverse cell types. The function of Dclk1 expressing tuft cells regulating intestinal epithelial DNA damage response for cell survival/self-renewal after radiation-induced injury is unclear. Intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) were isolated and purified and utilize...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common cancer and cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Although, the step-wise genetic alteration in the course of adenoma-carcinoma progression is well-understood, the mechanism of the tumour initiation and promotion is yet to be elucidated. Murine studies indicate that intestinal tumour originates from normal intestinal stem cells which acquire the oncogenic h...