Easy in the easy
Researchers from Columbia University were able to grow fully functional lungs in mouse embryos using donor stem cells. The data obtained indicate that this technique can be used to grow human lungs in animals for patients in need of transplantation, and to study new methods of lung treatment.
Many researchers have made efforts to create bioengineered lungs by growing from stem cells on synthetic scaffolds or on scaffolds made of collagen left after the removal of the remaining cells from donor lungs. Despite the significant progress made in this direction, the researchers were unable to create a functional lung capable of carrying out gas exchange and supporting the life of animal models.
The research team decided to change the approach and grow new lungs in the body of a developing animal in order to use the natural signals of the animal's body.
The first task was to create conditions for tissue cultivation that would allow donor stem cells to grow, proliferate and retain their ability to transform into many different types of cells. The researchers then implanted these stem cells into two types of artificial mouse embryos. The progenitors of lung cells in embryos of one type were unable to differentiate into mature cells, and in the second type, lung stem cells lost the ability to divide. So the authors came to the creation of a "chimeric" embryo, which is a mixture of donor and host cells.
Donor mouse pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) displaced host cells due to growth-stimulating molecules present in the embryo. UCS corrected the process of lung formation in genetically defective embryos of recipient mice.
Newborn mice lived to adulthood and had lungs that were functionally indistinguishable from the lungs of their relatives. Various functional tests confirmed that the "chimeric" lungs worked the same way as normal lungs. There were no signs of rejection, since the stem cells were implanted before the embryo's immune system was "turned on".
The method will be tested in larger animals and in interspecific organ transplantation.
The authors note that many signals during lung development are the same in different animal species, including humans, so the idea of using animals to grow human lungs is well founded.
Article by M. Mori et al. Generation of functional lungs via conditional blastocyst complementation using pluripotent stem cells is published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Aminat Adzhieva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru Based on the materials of Columbia University: Stem Cell Transplants Used to Grow Fully Functional Lungs in Mice.