Hematopoiesis in a bioreactor
Artificial bone marrow will help fight blood diseases
Alexey Yevglevsky, Naked Science
Every day, several billion blood cells are formed in the human bone marrow. This influx is provided by special progenitor stem cells, which are located in the niches of the bone marrow. For several years, researchers have been trying to reproduce the conditions of their reproduction, but it turned out only now.
Specialists from the University of Basel (Switzerland) have developed an artificial tissue that successfully mimics the functions of a biological one. They combined human mesenchymal cells, from which blood cells are obtained, with a three-dimensional porous ceramic framework that repeats the structure of human bone marrow. The scientists placed this model in a perfusion bioreactor that mixes biological and synthetic materials.
Three-dimensional microenvironments designed inside a perfusion bioreactor system (from the article Bourgine et al. In vitro biomimetic engineering of a human hematopoietic niche with functional properties, published in the journal PNAS).
During the tests, they found that hematopoietic stem cells and progenitor cells functioned for twenty days. The artificial tissue had a similar molecular structure to the natural niches of the bone marrow. The development of this model will allow in the future to learn how various processes in the body affect the formation of blood, as well as contribute to safer and more effective drug trials.
The author of the study, Ivan Martin, spoke about the prospects: "With the help of this technology, we could take patients' cells and create models of blood diseases, such as leukemia, in vitro. It is important that we would be able to do this in an environment that consists exclusively of human cells and includes conditions adapted to a specific individual."
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