GAINESVILLE, Fla., Oct. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists said they have discovered that as embryonic stem cells turn into various cell types, DNA replication and organizational changes also occur.
The research, termed groundbreaking, was led by Florida State University Professor David Gilbert. He said the findings "bridge a critical knowledge gap for stem cell biologists, enabling them to better understand the enormously complex process by which DNA is repackaged during differentiation" -- when embryonic stem cells adopt specialized functions.
"Understanding how replication works during embryonic stem cell differentiation gives us a molecular handle on how information is packaged in different types of cells in manners characteristic to each cell type," said Gilbert. "That handle will help us reverse the process in order to engineer different types of cells for use in disease therapies."
The research that included Ichiro Hiratani, Tomoki Yokochi and doctoral student Tyrone Ryba along, along with scientists from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the State University of New York, appeared in the Oct. 7 issue of the journal PLoS Biology.
