A team of Canadian scientists have identified which genes help decide a stem cell’s fate; a discovery that one day could lead to drugs that invoke their regenerative power.一組加拿大科學家已確定，其中的基因幫助決定一個幹細胞的命運;發現，一天可能會導致藥物援引其再生能力。

Oct4 is a POU transcription factor protein; it promotes the transcription of a gene’s DNA into messenger RNA. oct4是一個保轉錄因子蛋白;它促進轉錄的基因的DNA導入信使RNA 。 This particular protein is considered to be the master regulator of the stem cell state: it is thought to control what stem cells become, adult stem cell identity and has also been implicated in diseases such as cancer.這尤其是蛋白被認為是主監管者的造血幹細胞的國家：它被認為是控制幹細胞，成為，成人幹細胞的身份和也被牽連的疾病，如癌症。 However, until now, the molecular mechanism of how it does this was poorly understood.然而，直至目前為止，分子機制如何，這是否是了解甚少。

The researchers at the Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research in Ottawa and Ottawa University found that 1,155 genes are under the control of Oct4.研究人員在項目Sprott中心，幹細胞研究在渥太華和渥太華大學發現， 1155年基因控制下的oct4 。 Currently stem cells are commonly defined based on what they will become.目前幹細胞是常見的界定的基礎上，他們將淪為。 However, this research adds to the emerging molecular definition of stem cells; knowledge that will enable scientists to begin designing therapies to control these cells and their ability to regenerate tissue.不過，這項研究增加了新興的分子定義幹細胞;知識，這將使科學家們開始設計療法來控制這些細胞及其再生能力的組織。

“You could call this a ‘theory-of-everything’ for stem cells,” said one of the team, Dr Michael Rudnicki, referring to the often-cited unifying theory of everything for physics. “你可致電這是一個理論- -一切'為幹細胞，說： ”一個團隊，博士邁克爾rudnicki ，指的是經常提到的統一理論，一切為了物理。

The study, outlined in today’s online issue of the journal PloS One, took a unique approach to identifying the genes.研究中，概述了在今天的在線問題日刊plos一，採取了獨特的方法，以確定基因。 Typically, scientists have measured which genes are switched on in one type of stem cell and then compared this with gene expression in another type of stem cell.通常情況下，科學家們測定，其中的基因開關就在一種類型的幹細胞，然後比較，這與基因表達的另一種類型的幹細胞。 In this way, they can see which genes decide the fate of a particular type of stem cell.就這樣，他們可以看到其中的基因決定命運的一個特定類型的幹細胞。

However, rather than simply searching for any genes expressed by stem cells, the Canadian scientists decided to look for genes whose expression was also correlated with Oct4.不過，而不是簡單地尋找任何基因所表達的幹細胞，加拿大科學家決定尋找基因的表達也相關，與oct4 。 They did this using gene expression profiling coupled with statistical analysis.他們這樣做使用基因表達譜，再加上統計分析。

Source: Biopharma Reporter資料來源： biopharma記者