Oral epithelial stem cells in tissue maintenance and disease: the first steps in a long journey

Abstract

A better understanding of the adult stem cells found in the oral mucosa should lead to new therapies for mouth disorders, argue two researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, USA. In a review article, Kyle Jones and Ophir Klein discuss the progress made in recent years to identify and characterize oral epithelial stem cells (OESCs) from the tissue that lines the inside of the mouth cavity. Pathological changes in these cells are suspected to underlie various oral diseases. Although scientists have found some molecular markers expressed by OESCs, they have yet to discover genes that are expressed only by these stem cells. This makes tracking the organization and dynamics of OESCs in the body quite difficult, which will eventually be necessary to develop treatments that specifically target OESCs, the authors note.

Keywords

cancer stem cell / invariant asymmetry / neutral drift / oral epithelial stem cell / population asymmetry

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