Full analog
Stem cells have been turned into a complete analogue of bone tissue
Scientists have come to the conclusion that only two types of cells are needed for the formation of bone tissue – osteoblasts and osteocytes.
Dutch molecular biologists have learned how to turn bone marrow stem cells into a full-fledged analogue of bone tissue, which contains two key types of its cells. An article with the results of the study was published by the scientific journal Advanced Functional Materials (Akiva et al., An Organoid for Woven Bone).
Sandra Hoffman, associate professor at Eindhoven University of Technology, and her colleagues have created a technique by which stem cells can be used to grow fibrous bone tissue, one of the key components of bones. It connects solid layers and is responsible for the formation of their three-dimensional structure.
Scientists have found out how to reproduce the growth process of this part of the bones by experimenting with stem cells from the bone marrow of several young people.
After multiplying these cells, Hoffman and her colleagues seeded them with several polymer templates immersed in a nutrient medium that promotes the formation of various types of bone cells. By changing environmental conditions, scientists began to observe how these shifts, including various mechanical loads, affected stem cells.
Thanks to this, scientists have identified two sets of growth signals and conditions under which stem cells turned mainly into osteoblasts or osteocytes – the cells that make up bones. The former are responsible for the formation of bone tissue, and the latter unite in a kind of network and regulate the activity of osteoblasts.
The scientists modified the templates so that they could support the growth of both types of cells, and then followed their development. It turned out that as a result, a full-fledged fibrous bone tissue was formed, indistinguishable from how it looks inside a human embryo during the formation of its bones.
Further experiments with similar analogues of bone tissue, scientists hope, will help to find out the causes of disorders in its development, which lead to the appearance of severe diseases of the musculoskeletal system, as well as to create the first drugs that will rejuvenate and strengthen the bones of the elderly.
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