Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), are multipotent cells that give rise to multiple lineages including osteoblasts, adipocytes, muscle, and fibroblasts. MSCs are useful for clinical applications such as cell therapy because they can be isolated from an individual and expanded for use in tissue repair, as well as other therapeutic applications, without immune rejection. However, one of the key problems in the use of MSCs for these applications is the efficiency of these cells to engraft and fully regenerate damaged tissues. Therefore, to optimize this process, a comprehensive understanding of the key regulators of MSCs self-renewal and maintenance are critical to the success of future cell therapy as well as other clinical applications. The basic helix loop helix transcription factor, Twist, plays a master regulatory role in all of these processes and, therefore, a thorough understanding of the mechanistic insights in the role of Twist in lineage specification/differentiation and tumorigenesis is vital to the success of future clinical applications for the therapeutic use of MSCs. In this article, we highlight the basic mechanisms and signaling pathways that are important to MSC fate, maintenance, and differentiation, as well as the critical role that Twist plays in these processes. In addition, we review the known literature suggesting a critical role for Twist in the generation of cancer stem cells, as this information may contribute to a broader understanding of stem cell biology and stem-cell-based therapeutics.
(c) 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.