Paper Published in Science Advances

Design redundancy is not only an invention of engineers for building machines, but also a principle of nature for designing organisms. This principle is at play in the regulation of the genes responsible for directing stem cells to multiply themselves in the developing mouse embryo, as described in a new study in Science Advances.

In the study, scientists Oliver Bell, Jorge Zepeda-Martinez, and their collaborators from the Vienna BioCenter and USC studied the “silencing” of key genes that direct stem cells to differentiate into specific cell types or lineages. When these lineage-specific genes are silenced, the stem cells produce more stem cells, enabling the normal embryonic development of a mouse.

To read more, visit https://stemcell.keck.usc.edu/design-redundancy-is-in-our-dna/.