EDITORIAL article
Front. Cell Dev. Biol.
Sec. Stem Cell Research
This article is part of the Research TopicExternal Factors Influencing Stem Cells’ Pluripotency, Senescence, and DifferentiationView all 11 articles
Editorial: External Factors Influencing Stem Cells' Pluripotency, Senescence, and Differentiation
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Experimental and Clinical Research-UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium
- 2Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, United States
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12 molecules, Reprogramming, Regenerative Medicine. 13 14Stem cells have the unique capacities for self-renewal and differentiation into multiple types 15 of functional cells, which are critical for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering (Ireland 16 and Simmons, 2015). Their fate, such as whether they self-renew, differentiate, or enter 17 senescence, is tightly regulated not only by intrinsic genetic and epigenetic factors but also 18 by a complex array of extrinsic factors. In particular, external factors, including the 19 microenvironment, receptor-ligand interactions, and mechanical forces, play critical roles in 20 maintaining stem cell pluripotency, directing differentiation, and preventing or inducing 21 senescence (Zhang et al., 2022;Sun et al., 2023). Aberrant regulation of these extrinsic factors 22 often leads to the loss of normal stem cells and other functional cells, or promotes the 23 formation of unwanted cells, such as cancer stem cells or malignant cancer cells (Ponomarev 24 et al., 2022). Another group of studies emphasizes how external cues direct stem cell differentiation 52 toward specific lineages. Zhang et al. (2025)
Keywords: Stem Cells, pluripotency, senescence, differentiation, microenvironment, Bioactivemolecules, reprogramming, Regenerative Medicine
Received: 27 Oct 2025; Accepted: 30 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 NAJIMI and Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mustapha NAJIMI, mustapha.najimi@uclouvain.be
Myon Hee Lee, leemy@ecu.edu
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