The control of cell development and the genetic basis for a variety of diseases in the mouse are the main themes of the top 25 papers in our Special Topic on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. The majority of papers relate the results of targeting or mutating a specific gene or component, such as protooncogenes or growth factors-whether to study the function of the component in the developing cell or to discover the diseases that develop as a consequence of a mutation in the gene. The various diseases examined using murine models include hypercholesterolemia, atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, developmental abnormalities, inflammatory diseases, and an ulcerative colitis-like disease. Processes that can be studied using embryonic stem cells include tumorigenesis, blastocyst implantation in mammalian pregnancy, kidney development, hematopoiesis, neurogenesis, and angiogenesis. Two other papers in the top 25 deal with the use of stem cells in genetic screening tests and gene amplification analyses.
General
To construct this database,
papers were compiled based on following fields: title, author
keywords, keywords+, abstract. The keywords were extracted using:
(embryo*<AND>stem
cell*)<OR>(embryo*<AND>stem-cell*).
The baseline time span for this database was 1991-2001 (except for the
time series graphs - 1991-2000). The resulting database contained
4,764 papers; reflecting the contributions of 12,899 authors; 46
countries; 678 journals; and 1,727 organizations.
