Novel marker discovered for stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

17-Apr-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, April 17, 2014The development of stem cell therapies to cure a variety of diseases depends on the ability to characterize stem cell populations based on cell surface markers. Researchers from the Finnish Red Cross have discovered a new marker that is highly expressed in a type of stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood, which they describe in an article in BioResearch Open Access, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the BioResearch Open Access website.

Heli Suila and colleagues, Finnish Red Cross Blood Service, Helsinki, Finland present evidence to show that the glycan O-GLcNAc, is present on the surface of stem cells and is part of a stem cell-specific surface signature. In the article "Extracellular O-Linked N-Acetylglucosamine Is Enriched in Stem Cells Derived from Human Umbilical Cord Blood" the authors suggest that the glycan plays a crucial role in a cell signaling pathway that regulates embryonic development.

"This work is particularly interesting as epidermal growth factor domains are found on the Notch receptors, suggesting that these novel glycans may be involved in Notch receptor signaling pathways in stem cells," says BioResearch Open Access Editor Jane Taylor, PhD, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

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BioResearch Open Access is a bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal led by Editor-in-Chief Robert Lanza, MD, Chief Scientific Officer, Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. and Editor Jane Taylor, PhD. The Journal provides a new rapid-publication forum for a broad range of scientific topics including molecular and cellular biology, tissue engineering and biomaterials, bioengineering, regenerative medicine, stem cells, gene therapy, systems biology, genetics, biochemistry, virology, microbiology, and neuroscience. All articles are published within 4 weeks of acceptance and are fully open access and posted on PubMedCentral. All journal content is available on the BioResearch Open Access website.

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Novel marker discovered for stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood