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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Apr 26, 2015; 7(3): 583-595
Published online Apr 26, 2015. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v7.i3.583
Published online Apr 26, 2015. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v7.i3.583
Role of Hox genes in stem cell differentiation
Anne Seifert, David F Werheid, Silvana M Knapp, Edda Tobiasch, Department of Applied Sciences, Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, 53359 Rheinbach, Germany
Author contributions: Seifert A, Werheid DF, Knapp SM and Tobiasch E contributed to this paper.
Supported by BMBF, AdiPaD, 1720X06, BMBF, FHprofUnt, FKZ: 03FH012PB2; FH-Extra, “Europäischer Fonds für regionale Entwicklung”, “Europa-Investition in unsere Zukunft”, FKZ: z1112fh012; EFRE co-financed NRW Ziel 2: “Regionale Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und Beschäftigung”, DAAD, PPP Vigoni, FKZ: 314-vigoni-dr and FKZ: 54669218 for Edda Tobiasch.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors certify that there is no conflict of interest with any organization or entity with financial interests or non-financial interests, including commercial, personal, political, intellectual, or religious interests, regarding the material discussed in the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Edda Tobiasch, Professor, Department of Applied Sciences, Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, von-Liebig-Str. 20, 53359 Rheinbach, Germany. edda.tobiasch@h-brs.de
Telephone: +49-2241-865576 Fax: +49-2241-8658576
Received: July 29, 2014
Peer-review started: July 29, 2014
First decision: October 16, 2014
Revised: December 1, 2014
Accepted: December 16, 2014
Article in press: December 17, 2014
Published online: April 26, 2015
Peer-review started: July 29, 2014
First decision: October 16, 2014
Revised: December 1, 2014
Accepted: December 16, 2014
Article in press: December 17, 2014
Published online: April 26, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip:Hox genes are involved in embryonic development as well as in repair mechanisms in the adult body, thus regulating cell fate. These genes have also been found to be driving factors in various stem cell differentiations in vitro and in vivo which makes them interesting tools for future improvements in stem cell therapies. Therefore, this review outlines the involvement of Hox genes in various stem cell differentiations with a major emphasis on mesenchymal stem cell differentiations.