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By Jocelyn Rice

 

A single adult stem cell from the prostate of a mouse can develop into an entire functional organ, scientists reported online yesterday in Nature. The finding proves that a population of stem cells exists in the adult prostate, as many have long suspected, and it could provide insight into how prostate cancer develops.

"It's extremely exciting, the concept that you

can reconstitute an entire prostate from a single cell," says Tyler Jacks, director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, at MIT, who was not involved in the work. "That's impressive stuff."

 

Unlike embryonic stem cells, which can potentially develop into any cell type in the body, adult stem cells are tissue-specific. Many organs are believed to house populations of adult stem cells, but in most cases their existence remains unproven. Known adult stem cells, however, can give rise to all the cell types that characterize the organs in which they're found.

 

To sift out potential adult prostate stem cells, researchers at Genentech, in San Francisco, zeroed in on a group of cell-surface markers associated with suspected prostate stem cells. Since many of these markers are individually unreliable and poorly understood, the researchers tested a new one as well: a receptor protein called c-kit, which is known to be associated with other types of stem cells.