These same genes may also maintain long-term stem cell functions. Stem cells can divide and renew themselves over a long period of time and are kind of like a skeleton key.

Neural stem cells are the source of the brain’s primary functional cells. After the initial development of the brain, neural stem cells typically enter a dormant state, conserving energy and resources ...

Understanding the mechanisms of stem cell exhaustion in fruit flies provides valuable insights into the aging process more broadly and could offer clues about how aging impacts stem cells in humans.

However, the researchers noticed the fruit flies’ lifespans extended when HRJDs were expressed in intestinal stem cell lineages after development. “HRJDs promoted greater intestinal stem cell division ...

An international team of neuroscientists, led by Duke-NUS Medical School, have uncovered a mechanism that controls the reactivation of neural stem cells, which are crucial for repairing and ...

Researchers in Japan were able to transfer genes from jellyfish into common fruit flies and discovered that the transferred gene suppressed an age-related intestinal issue in the flies. The findings ...

Jones’ work shows that in fruit flies’ testes and intestines, stem cells and the tissues around them – called the stem cell niche – change with age. The findings challenge the idea that youthful stem ...