New stem cells – safe and effective
Researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, working under the guidance of Dr. Paul J. Gadue, have created a new type of human stem cells capable of differentiating into various types of specialized cells, including liver, pancreas and intestinal cells. The main advantage of these cells, called endodermal progenitor cells, over embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells is that they do not form tumors when transplanted to animals.
Until now, embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells have been considered the most promising material for cell therapy. Cells of both types have the ability to actively proliferate and differentiate into cells of all types of body tissues. However, a side effect of transplantation of such cells into a living organism is a significant risk of the formation of teratomas – tumors consisting of cells of many types.
With the help of a cytokine complex, the researchers managed to transform embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells into endodermal progenitor cells. These partially differentiated cells are capable of giving rise to endodermal germ cells and have virtually unlimited potential for proliferation in the laboratory. And, what is especially important, when transplanted to animals, endodermal progenitor cells did not form a teratome.
In culture experiments, scientists were able to differentiate endodermal progenitor cells into liver, intestinal and pancreatic beta cells. The latter have successfully passed a very important test for the ability to release insulin when exposed to glucose. This ability is usually lost by beta cells of patients with diabetes mellitus.
The functioning activity of beta cells grown from endodermal progenitor cells reached only 20% of the normal level. However, this indicator still significantly exceeds the result achieved in the differentiation of embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells.
Dr. Gadier emphasizes that the promising results obtained are only the first step in working with endodermal progenitor cells. Theoretically, these cells can be used for cell replacement therapy of liver and pancreatic diseases. It may also make sense to obtain such cells from the cells of patients with genetic forms of diabetes or liver disease, and use them to simulate the development and progression of a particular disease for the subsequent development of individualized treatment methods.
Article by Xin Cheng et al. Self-Renewing Endodermal Progenitor Lines Generated from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells is published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia:
New Stem Cell Line Provides Safe, Prolific Source for Disease Modeling and Transplant Studies.
06.04.2012