Stem Cells in Adult Homeostasis, Regeneration and Tissue Development of the Digestive Tract Epithelium

The gastrointestinal epithelium is one of the tissues with highest self-renewing rates under steady-state conditions, and it thereby constitutes an excellent model to better understand how tissues maintain homeostasis. In the past decade, intense research in this field has allowed identifying stem cells responsible for this task and has contributed to uncover the main molecular mechanisms associated with self-renewal and differentiation properties of these cells.