Dr. Pruitt's laboratory is studying both embryonic and somatic stem cells. Much of the work on somatic stem cells is being performed using mouse models where the central focus of the work is on understanding the role of these cells in age-related dysfunctions including cancer. Since many age-related changes are ultimately attributable to genomic instability, an important focus of this work is on the mechanisms responsible for accurate replication of the genome and the role that a stem cell based tissue organization plays in minimizing the burden of repeated replication cycles. Work on embryonic stem cells, both mouse and human, is focused on mechanisms of cell lineage determination and the interaction of these mechanisms with changes required for oncogenic transformation.
Pruitt, S.C., Bailey, K.J., Freeland, A. (2007). Reduced Mcm2 expression results in severe stem/progenitor cell deficiency and cancer. Stem Cells. 2007; 25(12):3121-3132.
Maslov, A.Y., Bailey, K.J., Mielnicki, L.M., Freeland, A.L., Sun, X., Burhans, W.C., and Pruitt, S.C. (2007) Stem/progenitor cell specific EGFP expression driven by the endogenous Mcm2 promoter. Stem Cells 2007; 25(1):13213-8.
Bailey, K.J., Maslov, A.Y. and Pruitt, S.C. (2004) Accumulation of mutations and somatic selection in aging neural stem/progenitor cells. Aging Cell 2004; 3:391-397.