5/17/2011 PERMALINK
Stem cell study could pave the way to regeneration of your age-damaged muscles. A team at Monash University led by developmental biologist Professor Christophe Marcelle has found the mechanism that causes stem cells in the embryo to differentiate into specialised cells that form the skeletal muscles of animal bodies. The scientists investigated the effect of a known signalling pathway called NOTCH on muscle differentiation. They found that differentiation of stem cells to muscle was initiated when NOTCH signalling proteins touched some of the cells. These proteins were carried by passing cells migrating from a different tissue–the neural crest–the progenitor tissue of sensory nerve cells. Muscle formation in the target stem cells occurred only when the NOTCH pathway was triggered briefly by the migrating neural crest cells.