Weekly The Niche Reads: tooth repair, PRC2, beach pics

I managed to escape to do some hiking along the coast so I’m behind on my weekly reading and I’m just getting back here on The Niche. Here are some articles I’m hoping to catch up on in coming days including an interesting overview of stem cells for tooth repair.

I sometimes have a wistful feeling that I would have enjoyed doing field research as a biologist. Instead, I spend most of my time in the lab. However, I find myself taking a lot of nature photos and sometimes thinking about them as a scientist.

I’ve included a few nature photos in this post from my recent hiking down by Monterey. Note the captions for information on the animals. Then scroll down for the recommended reading on stem cells this week.

Recommended research papers

• Mutant ASXL1 induces age-related expansion of phenotypic hematopoietic stem cells through activation of Akt/mTOR pathway, Nature Communications
• Tooth Repair and Regeneration: Potential of Dental Stem Cells, Trends in Molecular Medicine. There’s huge potential for stem cell-related technologies to have applications in oral health and in particular in tooth repair or replacement. Here’s a recent piece I did on learning from sharks about tooth replacement via stem cells.
• Species-Specific Relationships between DNA and Chromatin Properties of CpG Islands in Embryonic Stem Cells and Differentiated Cells, Stem Cell Reports.
• Generation, functional analysis and applications of isogenic three-dimensional self-aggregating cardiac microtissues from human pluripotent stem cells, Nature Protocols
• Chemical induction of neurogenic properties in mammalian Müller glia, Stem Cells.
• Firearms-related skeletal muscle trauma: pathophysiology and novel approaches for regeneration, NPJ regenerative medicine. This is one we don’t hear about often.
• The deubiquitinase Usp9x regulates PRC2-mediated chromatin reprogramming during mouse development, Nature Communications.