Abstract
Gastric epithelium operates in a hazardous environment that curtails the lifespan of the constituent cells, imposing a requirement for continuous epithelial renewal. Stem cells that reside in the stomach are thus essential for regulating physiological tissue renewal and injury repair because of their self-renewal, high proliferation capacity and multiple differentiation potentials. Recent investigations using lineage tracing models have identified diverse populations of gastric stem cells and even fully differentiated cells that can regain stem cell capacity, so enriching our understanding on the identity and plasticity of gastric stem cells. These cell populations include the Villin promotor, Lgr5+, CCKR2+, Axin2+ and AQP5+ stem cells in the antrum, TFF2 mRNA, Mist1+ cells and Troy+ mature chief cells in the corpus, as well as Sox2, eR1, Lrig1, Bmi1-marked cell in both the antrum and the corpus. Establishment of gastric organoids derived from primary gastric tissues and pluripotent stem cells or embryonic stem cells characterizes niche factors required by the gastric stem cell populations, and further provides new insights into stomach development, host-Helicobacter pylori interactions and malignant transformation. Furthermore, focus on the gastric stem cells and their niches uncovers the initiation of stomach precancerous lesions and origin of gastric cancer, providing options for cancer prevention and intervention. In summary, with the development of stem cell research, gastric stem cells give us more opportunities to prevent and treat stomach diseases.
Highlights
The stomach epithelium is a hazardous environment that curtails the lifespan of constituent cells, imposing a requirement for continuous renewal of epithelium
Gastric stem cells play a key role in the dynamic renewal of gastric mucosal epithelium
Linage tracing approach has made breakthroughs that enable understanding of the physiological characteristics of gastric stem cells in their niches, but further efforts are warranted for defining the various components involved in gastric stem cell niches
Summary
The stomach epithelium is a hazardous environment that curtails the lifespan of constituent cells, imposing a requirement for continuous renewal of epithelium. Stems cells in our gut are, essential for epithelial regeneration and damage repair owing to their ability for self-renewal, high proliferation capacity and potential for multiple differentiation. Advances have been made in the investigation of molecular markers identifying gastric stem cells. In vitro gastric stem cell models have been established, revealing the role of these cells in physiology and pathology. Some sporadic reviews on this topic have been published in past years (Bartfeld and Koo, 2017; Hata et al, 2018), this present review aim to provide fresh and profound insights into stomach stem cells from physiological and pathological perspectives
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