Stem Cells In The Gastrointestinal Tract

Turnover of the epithelial cell lineages within the gastrointestinal tract is a constant process, occurring every two to seven days under normal homeostasis and increasing after damage. This process is regulated by multipotent stem cells, which generate all gastrointestinal epithelial cell lineages and can regenerate whole intestinal crypts and gastric glands. The stem cells of the gastrointestinal tract are as yet undefined, although it is generally agreed that they are located within a "niche" in the intestinal crypts and gastric glands. Studies of allophenic, tetraparental chimeric mice and targeted stem cell mutations suggest that a single stem cell undergoes an asymmetrical division to produce an identical daughter cell, thus replicating itself, and a committed progenitor cell, which further differentiates into an adult epithelial cell type. The discovery of stem cell plasticity in many tissues, including the ability of transplanted bone marrow to transdifferentiate into intestinal subepithelial myofibroblasts, provides a potential use of bone marrow cells to deliver therapeutic genes to damaged tissues, for example, in the treatment of mesenchymal diseases in the gastrointestinal tract, such as fibrosis and Crohn's disease. Studies are beginning to identify the molecular pathways that regulate stem cell proliferation and differentiation into adult gastrointestinal cell lineages, such as the Wnt and Notch-Delta signaling pathways, and to discover the importance of mesenchymal-epithelial interactions in normal gastrointestinal epithelium and in development and disease. Finally, despite some dispute, a strong case can be made for intestinal neoplasia arising as a result of a series of mutations in stem cells. The mechanism and direction of the spread of this mutated clone in the gastrointestinal mucosa is hotly disputed, and central to this argument is the position and nature of the gastrointestinal stem cell.