Stem Cells and Their Niche

Cell, Vol. 116, 769–778, March 19, 2004, Copyright 2004 by Cell Press

Socializing with the Neighbors: Stem Cells and Their Niche
Elaine Fuchs,* Tudorita Tumbar, and Geraldine Guasch Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Rockefeller University New York, New York 10021

Review

The potential of stem cells in regenerative medicine relies upon removing them from their natural habitat, propagating them in culture, and placing them into a foreign tissue environment. To do so, it is essential to understand how stem cells interact with their microenvironment, the so-called stem cell niche, to establish and maintain their properties. In this review, we examine adult stem cell niches and their impact on stem cell biology. The Existence and Importance of Adult Stem Cells and Their Niches The magnificent ability to generate an embryo from a single fertilized oocyte or to regenerate certain tissues, upon injury or natural physiological turnover, is a direct result of stem cells, nature’s gift to multicellular organisms. The gold standard of stem cells is the fertilized egg, which produces an organism replete with a myriad of specialized cell types, including reproductive germ stem cells (GSCs). As the embryo first develops, an outer protective shell of support cells encases an undifferentiated mass of pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs) that will make the animal. As development proceeds, pluripotent embryonic stem cells disappear as more restricted somatic stem cells (SSCs) give rise to the tissues and organs. Although cell diversification is largely complete at or shortly after birth, organs must possess a mechanism to replenish cells as they die, either by natural wear and tear (homeostasis), or by injury. To accomplish this feat in the adult world, many developing tissues set aside life-long reservoirs of somatic stem cells, which retain some of the versatile characteristics of their early ESC counterparts, including the capacity to seemingly endlessly self-renew,

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