Ricerc@Sapienza

In multicellular organisms, a stringent control of the transitionbetween cell division and differentiation is crucial for correcttissue and organ development. In theArabidopsisroot, the bound-ary between dividing and differentiating cells is positioned by theantagonistic interaction of the hormones auxin and cytokinin. Cy-tokinin affects polar auxin transport, but how this impacts thepositional information required to establish this tissue boundary,is still unknown.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are used to produce transplantable tissues, may particularly benefit older patients, who are more likely to suffer from degenerative diseases. However, iPSCs generated from aged donors (A-iPSCs) exhibit higher genomic instability, defects in apoptosis and a blunted DNA damage response compared with iPSCs generated from younger donors.