Non - stem cells
A new type of cell has been discovered that can save thousands of lives. And these are not stem cells
Vladimir Kuznetsov, Hi-News.ru
It would seem that after so many years of thorough study of human anatomy and physiology, there should have been nothing left in our body that would not have caught the eye of medical scientists. However, researchers are constantly making new discoveries. For example, not so long ago, a group of scientists from King's College London discovered a new type of cell in the liver that has the properties of stem cells, while not being them.
Article by Segal et al. Single cell analysis of human foetal liver captures the transcriptional profile of hepatobiliary hybrid progenitors published in the journal Nature Communications – VM.
How a new kind of cells was discovered
A newly identified new type of liver cells is called hepatobiliary hybrid progenitor (HHyP). Their existence was known earlier. They are usually formed during the period of early fetal development, but before that it was believed that all these cells by the time of adulthood and puberty are modified into liver cells, forming an organ. However, it turned out that this was not the case. According to the researchers, HHyPs persist in small amounts in adults and they are able to differentiate into hepatocytes and cholangiocytes (the two main types of human liver cells).
The cells were detected by single-cell RNA sequencing. In simple terms, the determination of the sequence of the RNA chain of cells. At a certain stage in the study of liver cells, scientists realized that the data obtained in some cases did not correspond to the RNA of ordinary liver cells. Continuing the study, it turned out that the information obtained was inherent in HHyP cells, which can behave like stem cells, but are not.
We have discovered for the first time that cells similar in their properties to stem cells can exist in the liver of an adult," said the study's lead author Tamir Rashid.
Today, the only way to treat severe liver diseases is organ transplantation, which, firstly, is not available to all patients, and secondly, can lead to serious complications. The discovery of HHyP opens up fundamentally new approaches in the development of treatment methods.
What's next?
Now the team of scientists is only at the beginning of its journey and plans to develop new methods for "growing" the liver in the very near future. In addition, the "reprogramming" of cells to give them the necessary properties is also considered a promising direction. Thus, it will be possible to create HHyP in the right amount for each patient.
Moreover, the presence of HHyP in the liver may indirectly indicate that similar cells exist in other organs. And if this is the case, then in the future doctors will be able to save more than one hundred human lives.
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