Areas of Interest
The unlimited self-renewal and developmental potential of human
embryonic stem (ES) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells
makes them highly promising to produce desired cells and tissues
for modeling and treatment of a variety of diseases, and to
serve as models for study of human development. My laboratory is
interested to elucidate how BMP, TGFβ,
and FGF signaling pathways regulate self-renewal and
differentiation of human ES and iPS cells, and how specific
target genes mediate these activities. Based on this knowledge,
we are recently developing disease-oriented projects by using
human ES cells and disease-specific iPS cells. These lines of
research are all open to rotation students.
My laboratory has also served as the University of
Connecticut Stem Cell Core since 2006. We have derived and
banked many human ES and iPS cell lines, and distributed them to
researchers state- and nationwide. In addition, we provide
training in human ES/iPS cell culture, iPS cell derivation,
lineage-specific differentiation, etc.
Selected Publications
Luong, M.X., Auerbach, J., Crook, J.M., Daheron, D., Hei, D.,
Lomax, J., Loring, J.F., Ludwig, T., Rooke, H.M., Schlaeger, T.M.,
Smith, K.P., Stacey, G., Xu, R.-H., and Zeng, F. A call for
standardized naming and reporting of human ES and iPS cell
lines. Cell Stem Cell In press.
Zeng, H., Guo, M., Martins-Taylor K., Wang, X., Zhang, Z.,
Park, J.W., Zhan, S., Kronenberg, M.S., Lichtler, A., Liu,
H.-X., Chen, F.-P., Yue, L., Li, X.-J., and Xu, R.-H.
Specification of region-specific neurons including forebrain
glutamatergic neurons from human induced pluripotent stem cells.
PLoS ONE 5(7):e11853, 2010.
Martins-Taylor, K. and Xu, R.-H. Determinants of pluripotency:
from avian, rodents to primates. J. Cell. Biochem. 109(1):16-25,
2010.
Lin, G. and Xu, R.-H. Progresses and challenges in
optimization of human pluripotent stem cell culture. Current
Stem Cell Res. & Therapy March 8, 2010.
Lin, G., Martins-Taylor, K. and Xu, R.-H. Human embryonic
stem cell derivation, maintenance, and differentiation to
trophoblast. Methods Mol. Biol. 636:1-24, 2010.
Zeng, H., Park, J.W., Guo, M., Lin, G., Crandall, L.,
Compton, T., Wang, X., Li, X.-J., Chen, F.-P., and Xu, R.-H.
Lack of ABCG2 expression and side population properties in human
pluripotent stem cells. Stem Cells 27(10):2435-45, 2009.
Wang, X., Lin, G., Martins-Taylor, K., Zeng, H., and Xu,
R.-H. Inhibition of caspase-mediated anoikis is critical for
bFGF-sustained culture of human pluripotent stem cells. J. Biol.
Chem. 284(49):34054-64, 2009.
Xu, R.-H., Sampsell-Barron, T.L., Gu, F., Root, S., Peck, R.M.,
Pan, G., Yu, J., Antosiewicz-Bourget, J., Tian, S., Stewart, and
Thomson, J.A. NANOG is a direct target of TGF/Activin mediated
SMAD signaling in human ES cells. Cell Stem Cell 3(2):196-206,
2008
Xu, R.-H., Peck, R.M., Li, D.S., Feng, X., Ludwig, T., and
Thomson, J.A. Basic FGF and suppression of BMP signaling sustain
undifferentiated proliferation of human ES cells. Nat. Methods
2(3):185-190, 2005.
Xu, R.-H., Chen, X., Li, D.S., Li, R., Addicks, G.C., Glennon,
C., Zwaka, T.P., and Thomson, J.A. (2002). BMP4 initiates human
embryonic stem cell differentiation to trophoblast. Nat.
Biotechnol. 20(12): 1261-4.
rev. 3/11 |
