WALTHAM, Mass., June 26 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) — Minerva Biotechnologies published, “The Wnt pathway induces a naïve-like subpopulation in primed stem cells, while NME7AB leads to a homogeneous naïve-like population,” in the journal PLOS One, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0325997
These studies shed light on the scientific controversy of whether activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway induces human stem cell pluripotency or differentiation. The literature is replete with contradictory conclusions, based on what appear to be sound scientific studies. Others reported that low levels of β-catenin skew differentiation down neuroectoderm, whereas high levels favor differentiation down mesendoderm. Recently two research groups independently found that “boosting” β-catenin just prior to differentiation improved differentiation of both neuroectoderm and mesendoderm.