How a single cell gives rise to an entire organism is one of biology's greatest mysteries. Within this process, stem cells play a key role by serving as seed cells capable of both self-renewal to sustain themselves as well as differentiation to generate the full diversity of mature cells and functional tissues. Understanding how this balance between self-renewal and differentiation is achieved is crucial to defining not only the underpinnings of normal development but also how its subversion can lead to cancer. Musashi, a family of RNA binding proteins discovered originally in Drosophila and named after the iconic samurai, Miyamoto Musashi, has emerged as a key signal that confers and protects the stem cell state across organisms. Here we explore the role of this signal in stem cells and how its reactivation can be a critical element in oncogenesis. Relative to long-established developmental signals such as Wnt, Hedgehog, and Notch, our understanding of Musashi remains in its infancy; yet all evidence suggests that Musashi will emerge as an equally powerful paradigm for regulating development and cancer and may be destined to have a great impact on biology and medicine.

中文翻译：

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武藏在干细胞和癌症中的信号传导。

单个细胞如何产生整个生物是生物学最大的谜团之一。在此过程中，干细胞通过充当能够自我更新以维持自身以及分化以产生成熟细胞和功能组织的完全多样性的种子细胞而发挥关键作用。了解如何实现自我更新和分化之间的平衡，不仅对定义正常发育的基础，而且对其颠覆可能导致癌症的发展至关重要。Musashi是最初在果蝇中发现的一种RNA结合蛋白家族，以标志性的武士宫本武藏（Miyamoto Musashi）命名，已经成为赋予并保护跨生物体干细胞状态的关键信号。在这里，我们探讨了该信号在干细胞中的作用以及其重新激活如何成为肿瘤发生中的关键因素。相对于Wnt，Hedgehog和Notch等已确立的发展信号，我们对Musashi的了解仍处于起步阶段。然而，所有证据表明，武藏将成为调节发展和癌症的同等强大范例，并且注定会对生物学和医学产生巨大影响。