Regeneration After Injury: Activation of Stem Cell Stress Response Pathways to Rapidly Repair Tissues

Stem cells play key roles in the development of tissues and maintain tissue homeostasis. Because of these properties a great deal of research is focused on exploiting tissue stem cells as a means to treat degenerative diseases. In fact recent advances in the derivation of tissue stem cell populations from embryonic stem (ES) cells or induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells hold great promise for the development of new therapies. Unfortunately much of this promise has not been fulfilled. An alternative approach is to examine the mechanisms by which tissues respond to injury and regenerate. In this chapter, we will discuss a number of different strategies that stem cells use to repair injured tissue that differ from the mechanisms that regulate homeostatic maintenance of the tissue. Although this discussion only touches on a few examples, each situation has direct implications for therapy development, which would suggest that tissue regeneration may be more complicated than transplanting ES- or iPS-derived stem cells into patients.