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Collaborative research sheds light on new cancer stem cell therapies

Posted: January 29, 2012 at 4:54 pm

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2012) — A
collaborative anti-cancer research jointly conducted by The
Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Peking University
Shenzhen Graduate School and Nevada Cancer Institute has led to
the development of a novel class of chemical inhibitors that
specifically target cancer cells with pluripotency.

This cutting-edge research has combined the effort of three
research teams including one led by Dr Tao Ye (??), Associate
Professor of PolyU's Department of Applied Biology and Chemical
Technology. This breakthrough may help the selective removal of
cancer stem cells and potentially provide a novel strategy to
eradicate cancers.

Cancer is a major cause of human death in China and all around
the world. It is difficult to treat cause of the existence of
cancer initiating cells/cancer stem cells. Although they exist
in very few in numbers, cancer stem cells (CSCs) can
proliferate and self-renew, and are pluripotent and
multipotent, which have the capability to differentiate into
various more heterogeneous cancer cells that constitute the
entire tumor mass. As stem cells, they are more resistant to
most conventional cancer therapies such as chemotherapy or
radiotherapy due to their differences in the cell cycle
regulation and DNA repair processes. They also act as the
source for metastasis and recurring drug resistant cancers
after conventional cancer therapy. Currently, there are no
chemical inhibitors or other agents that can specifically and
selectively target cancer stem cells. The development of
compounds that target cancer stem cells is an unmet medical
demand for the eradication of malignant cancers.

According to Dr Ye, the potential clinical applications of new
LSD1 inhibitors include the following:

(1) They can be used to treat malignant germ cell tumors such
as teratoma/teratocarcinomas, embryonic carcinomas, seminomas,
choriocarcinomas, and tumors of yolk sac. These tumors are
usually treated by surgery or cis-platinum, but after initial
treatment, these tumors always become resistant to platinum
drugs. So far, the LSD1 inhibitors are highly effective towards
these pluriptont cancers with stem cell properties.

(2) The LSD1 inhibitors may also be used to remove
teratomas/embryonic carcinomas during stem cell-based therapy.
One major problem in stem/iPS cell-based therapy is the
formation of embryonic carcinomas, teratomas, or
teratocarcinomas by incomplete differentiation of ES/iPS cells
in the organs of recipients.  Because LSD1 selectively
inhibit these pluripotent embryonic carcinomas, teratomas, or
teratocarcinomas, LSD1 inhibitors may help ensure the
successful application of stem cell-based therapy.

(3) More importantly, since teratomas/embryonic carcinomas are
pluripotent cancer stem cells, researchers will probe whether
cancer stem cells of other types of major organ-specific
cancers such as breast, ovarian, lung, and brain cancers are
sensitive to these LSD1 inhibitors. Further studies indicated
that LSD1 inhibitors can also be used to inhibit many cancer
stem cell-like cells such as breast and ovarian cancers.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, via ResearchSEA.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For
further information, please contact the source cited
above.

Journal References:

Felix Cheung. Cancer biology: Ridding the seeds of
evil. Nature China, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nchina.2012.1

J. Wang, F. Lu, Q. Ren, H. Sun, Z. Xu, R. Lan, Y. Liu, D.
Ward, J. Quan, T. Ye, H. Zhang. Novel Histone
Demethylase LSD1 Inhibitors Selectively Target Cancer Cells
with Pluripotent Stem Cell Properties. Cancer
Research, 2011; 71 (23): 7238 DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-11-0896

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited
instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended
to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views
expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily
or its staff.

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Collaborative research sheds light on new cancer stem cell therapies

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Colon Cancer Screening Needed Less Than Every 5 Years

Posted: January 29, 2012 at 4:54 pm

Colon Cancer Screening Needed Less Than Every 5 Years - Colon cancer is easily treated if found early enough, but it appears current recommendations for scope screening every 5 years is unnecessarily frequent.

Sigmoidoscopy screening for colon cancer is recommended every five years for people over 50, however a new study found that screening that often may be unnecessary.

Sigmoidoscopy screening allows a doctor to identify polyps, or small growths, in the colon that could turn into cancer. Other colon cancer screening methods include fecal occult blood testing, which identifies blood in the stool, and colonoscopy, which examines the entire colon (sigmoidoscopy only examines the lower part).

While the American Cancer Society recommends that adults over 50 receive sigmoidoscopy screening every five years and a fecal occult blood test annually, some say this may be overly aggressive.

According to experts, it could take up to 15 years for polyps to develop into cancer and it may be that a one-time sigmoidoscopy screening is enough for those at average-risk. Read more...

AyurGold for Healthy Blood

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Oracle Unveils Oracle® Health Sciences Omics Data Bank as Part of Oracle Health Sciences Translational Research Center

Posted: January 29, 2012 at 4:54 pm

Via Scoop.it – inPharmatics

Oracle Exadata gets into Personlized Medicine & Bioinformatics space dressed as Oracle® Health Sciences Omics Data Bank.    Oracle Health Sciences today announced availability of Oracle® Health Sciences Omics Data Bank, a molecular data model, which is part of Oracle Health Sciences Translational Research Center.   The new data model provides integration and analysis of cross-platform omics data to support translational research. Oracle Health Sciences Translational Research Center runs on Oracle Exadata Database Machine, delivering the extreme performance required for querying vast data sets.
Via http://www.oracle.com

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Magazine Survey on CIRM Shows Mixed Results

Posted: January 29, 2012 at 4:53 pm


The magazine GEN this week produced two relatively lengthy articles dealing with the current state of affairs and the future of the $3 billion California stem cell agency.

Much of the material is familiar to readers of the California Stem Cell Report, but GEN, which says it reaches "221,035 biotech and life science professionals, also produced an online survey that asked its readers: "How helpful has CIRM been in advancing stem cell science?"

At the time of this writing, the results showed that 40.9 of respondents said CIRM was "very helpful."  An identical percentage said "not very" or were undecided. The survey showed 18.2 percent as ranking the agency "somewhat" helpful. The number of respondents was not disclosed.

The two articles (see here and here)by Alex Philippidis also discussed the possibility of a bond issue in a "few years," before CIRM runs out of cash in 2017. Philippidis wrote,

"By then CIRM hopes to have won what ICOC (the CIRM governing board) chairman Jonathan Thomas, Ph.D., has called the 'communications war' the agency is fighting with California newspapers and the CIRM-focused blog California Stem Cell Report. Both have criticized the agency over a host of governance and pay issues."

For the record, the California Stem Cell Report has not criticized the agency in connection with the level of its executive pay. We have pointed out that many California voters have a highly negative and visceral reaction to high public salaries, which is a matter that CIRM must deal with in connection with retention of public confidence. We have also noted that the salaries represent a tiny, tiny fraction of CIRM spending.

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IOM Panel Ends California Visit With No Mainstream Media Coverage

Posted: January 29, 2012 at 4:53 pm


The blue-ribbon Institute of Medicine panel examining the performance of the $3 billion California stem cell agency has quietly concluded its first public hearing in California without so much as a smidgen of daily coverage in the mainstream media.

Instead, the big state news in California yesterday was a lawsuit filed by lawmakers against the state's top fiscal officer to prevent him from cutting their pay again when they fail to pass a balanced budget.

It would have been extremely unlikely, however, to have seen any daily coverage of the IOM session. The mainstream media generally ignores the affairs of the California stem cell agency.

Other than what has appeared on the California Stem Cell Report, the most comprehensive look at the $700,000, IOM examination of CIRM was provided on Tuesday by Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society, which has followed CIRM, and the ballot measure that created it, since 2004.

Darnovsky brought her readers on the Biopolitical Times up to speed on CIRM matters. She noted that CIRM will need more cash in a few years when its bond funding runs out. She concluded,

"But ballot measure or no ballot measure, CIRM will continue to disperse the public money it controls - another billion and a half dollars. This is a public agency spending increasingly scarce public resources. It is funding a field of research in which we place great hopes for medical and scientific advances. These factors make it all the more crucial that CIRM follow the basics of good governance and public accountability, and eschew the hyperbole and exaggerated promises that have tainted stem cell research for so long."

The California Stem Cell Report emailed a 1,370-word statement to the panel. The study director of the IOM panel said the statement would be placed in the panel's record.

The document provided perspective on the formation of CIRM, the political context in which it operates and discussed some of the potential pitfalls of CIRM's necessary but delicate courting of industry. Suggestions were offered for changes to ease potential conflicts of interest and to open to the public the statements of the economic interests of the grant reviewers who make the de facto decisions on CIRM's funding.

Here is the full statement from the California Stem Cell Report.
CSCR Statement to IOM-CIRM Performance Inquiry

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The California Stem Cell Agency and the ACT Opportunity

Posted: January 29, 2012 at 4:53 pm


A promising, positive story on stem cell research in California popped up in the news this week, involving improvements in vision as the result of the only hESC clinical trial in the nation.

The story came after Jonathan Thomas, chairman of the $3 billion California stem cell agency, said in the San Francisco Business Times that what he likes least about his job is that "the coverage in the press chooses to focus on items besides the extraordinary work that our scientists are doing."

The good news about the eye research appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and across the nation. However, it did not involve work at the stem cell agency, probably for reasons that likely have to do in good part with CIRM. The research involves a firm headquartered in Santa Monica, Ca., Advanced Cell Technology, that moved its base to the Golden State in hopes of securing CIRM funding. ACT has applied more than once for CIRM cash but has never received a grant. And it is one of the rare companies that has complained publicly to the CIRM governing board about a conflict of interest on the part of a CIRM reviewer. In ACT's case, its complaints received a public brushoff at a CIRM board meeting in 2008.

ACT's results in its clinical trial are quite tentative. They involve only two persons. One of the UCLA scientists involved said part of the results could have been the result of a placebo effect. Nonetheless, the reports carried the kind of story line that CIRM yearns for. Indeed, Thomas stressed the need for positive news when he told CIRM directors last June that the agency is in a "communications war" that is tied to its ultimate fate. (The agency runs out of cash in 2017.)

The New York Times' Andy Pollock wrote,

"Both patients, who were legally blind, said in interviews that they had gains in eyesight that were meaningful for them. One said she could see colors better and was able to thread a needle and sew on a button for the first time in years. The other said she was able to navigate a shopping mall by herself."

On its research blog, CIRM described the ACT results as a "milestone." CIRM's Amy Adams wrote,

"It’s the first published paper showing that—at least in this small number of patients for the first few months—the cells are safe."

She quoted Hank Greely of Stanford as saying that the news from ACT is "at least, a little exciting – and in a field that saw its first approved clinical trial stopped two months ago, even a little exciting news is very welcome."

Greely's reference, of course, was to Geron's sudden abandonment in November of its hESC trial, only three months after CIRM gave the firm a $25 million loan. It was widely believed that ACT was one of the initial applicants in the round that provided funding for Geron, although CIRM does not release the names of non-funded applicants.

Last week, CIRM directors spent a fair amount of time discussing the agency's future. The talk was of priorities, hard choices and generating results that would resonate with the people of California.

This week's news from a company that was not funded by CIRM will give them more to ponder.

Source:
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UCD stem cell research battles Huntington's disease

Posted: January 29, 2012 at 3:43 pm

A team of researchers at UC Davis has pioneered a technique to
use stem cells to smother the genetic problem that causes
Huntington's disease.

The findings, due in the journal Molecular and Cellular
Neuroscience, could pave the way for a treatment that stops the
disease's devastating progression.

Huntington's is an inherited disease in which the body produces
a mutant version of a protein, huntingtin, that destroys nerve
cells in the brain.

It causes uncontrolled movements and difficulty walking, plus
dementia that grows progressively worse until the disease
ultimately results in death. It strikes about one in every
10,000 people in this country, according to the Huntington's
Disease Society of America.

There is no known cure. Treatment aims to slow down the
worsening of symptoms and keep the patient comfortable.

Researchers at the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures,
led by Jan A. Nolta, attacked abnormal huntingtin with a
technique called RNA interference.

This is how it works: RNA is a molecule similar to DNA that
occurs naturally in the body and which cells use to produce
proteins.

If a strand of RNA is producing a bad protein, like the mutant
huntingtin, researchers can create another strand that's
essentially an inverted version of the bad one. Inject that new
molecule into a cell, and it locks onto the bad RNA like an
opposite puzzle piece, blocking it from making any protein.

For the first time, Nolta and colleagues were able to generate
huntingtin-blocking RNA in stem cells and inject them straight
into nerve cells – a treatment that significantly reduced the
amount of the mutant protein produced.

The scientists used stem cells derived from the bone marrow of
healthy human donors.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Team KJ
funded the research.

Nolta said the findings could lead to treatments for genetic
disorders such as ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and Parkinson's,
as well.

Now, she said, "Our challenge with RNA interference technology
is to figure out how to deliver it into the human brain in a
sustained, safe and effective manner. We're exploring how to
use human stem cells to create RNAi production factories within
the brain."

Nolta's lab recently received funding from the California
Institute for Regenerative Medicine to develop an RNAi delivery
system for Huntington's disease.

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World-Renowned Cell-Therapy Researcher, Doris Taylor, PhD, Joins Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital

Posted: January 29, 2012 at 5:46 am

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Officials at the Texas Heart Institute
(THI) at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital (St. Luke’s) announced
today that Doris
Taylor, PhD, FAHA, FACC, one of the world’s leading cell
therapy and cardiac regeneration scientists, will join THI
beginning March 1, 2012.

Dr. Taylor’s research includes: Cell and gene therapy for
treatment of cardiovascular disease; tissue
engineering of bioartificial organs and vasculature; cell-based
prevention of disease; stem cells and cancer; and holistic
approaches to using cell therapy for treating chronic disease.

Most recently, Dr. Taylor and her team garnered international
recognition for work involving “whole organ decellularization”
by showing they were able to remove existing cells from hearts
of laboratory animals and even humans leaving a framework to
build new organs. They repopulated the framework with other
adult stem cells then provided a blood supply, and the heart
regenerated with the characteristics and functions of a
revitalized beating heart.

The hope is that this research is an early step toward being
able to grow a fully functional human heart in the laboratory.
Dr. Taylor has demonstrated that the process works for other
organs as well – opening a door in the field of organ
transplantation.

It is significant in that the need for transplants continues to
grow, while the supply of donor organs remains critically low.

“Dr. Taylor is certainly one of the stars in the adult human
stem cell field, and we feel extremely fortunate to have her
join our team,” said Dr. James T. Willerson, THI’s President
and Medical Director. “Her work fits very well with our mission
and goals, and she certainly helps to solidify THI as a leader
in cell therapy, which is one of the most promising hopes for
treating cardiovascular disease.”

“The chance to work with Dr. Willerson and the THI team as
colleagues is very exhilarating. From molecules, to cells, to
organs and tissues, we want to create solutions for people with
disease,” said Dr. Taylor. “I am confident that I am joining a
regenerative medicine program that is unparalleled. And, given
the breadth of innovation and science in Houston, I have every
confidence that building solutions for heart diseases not only
has a long history, but a bright future.”

The move to Houston will also bring her closer to her family,
notes Dr. Taylor.

Dr. Taylor has been serving as director of the Center for
Cardiovascular Repair and Medtronic Bakken Chair in Integrative
Biology and Physiology at the University of Minnesota. Prior to
that she was on the faculty as Associate Professor in
Cardiology at Duke University Medical Center.

A native of Mississippi, Dr. Taylor holds a B.S. in biology
from Mississippi University for Women and a Doctorate in
pharmacology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical
School in Dallas.

About the Texas Heart® Institute

The Texas Heart Institute (www.texasheart.org),
founded by world-renowned cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Denton A.
Cooley in 1962, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to
reducing the devastating toll of cardiovascular disease through
innovative and progressive programs in research, education and
improved patient care. Together with its clinical partner, St.
Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, it has been ranked among the top 10
cardiovascular centers in the United States by U.S. News &
World Report’s annual guide to “America’s Best Hospitals” for
the past 21 years. The Texas Heart Institute is also
affiliated with the University of Texas (UT) System, which
promotes collaboration in cardiovascular research and education
among UT and THI faculty at the Texas Heart Institute and other
UT components.

About St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System

St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System (StLukesTexas.com)
includes St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical
Center, founded in 1954 by the Episcopal Diocese of Texas; St.
Luke’s The Woodlands Hospital; St. Luke’s Sugar Land Hospital;
St. Luke’s Lakeside Hospital; St. Luke’s Patients Medical
Center; St. Luke’s Hospital at The Vintage; and St. Luke’s
Episcopal Health Charities, a charity devoted to assessing and
enhancing community health, especially among the underserved.
St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital is home to the Texas
Heart®Institute, which was founded in
1962 by Denton A. Cooley, MD, and is consistently ranked among
the top 10 cardiology and heart surgery centers in the country
by U.S. News & World Report. Affiliated with several
nursing schools and three medical schools, St. Luke’s Episcopal
Hospital was the first hospital in Texas named a Magnet
hospital for nursing excellence, receiving the award three
times.

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World-Renowned Cell-Therapy Researcher, Doris Taylor, PhD, Joins Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital

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Alzheimers Neurons Created from Pluripotent Stem Cells

Posted: January 28, 2012 at 8:10 pm

First-ever feat provides new method to understand cause of
disease, develop drugs

Newswise — Led by researchers at the University of California,
San Diego School of Medicine, scientists have, for the first
time, created stem cell-derived, in vitro models of sporadic
and hereditary Alzheimer’s disease (AD), using induced
pluripotent stem cells from patients with the much-dreaded
neurodegenerative disorder.

“Creating highly purified and functional human Alzheimer’s
neurons in a dish – this has never been done before,” said
senior study author Lawrence Goldstein, PhD, professor in the
Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Howard Hughes
Medical Institute Investigator and director of the UC San Diego
Stem Cell Program. “It’s a first step. These aren’t perfect
models. They’re proof of concept. But now we know how to make
them. It requires extraordinary care and diligence, really
rigorous quality controls to induce consistent behavior, but we
can do it.”

The feat, published in the January 25 online edition of the
journal Nature, represents a new and much-needed method
for studying the causes of AD, a progressive dementia that
afflicts approximately 5.4 million Americans. More importantly,
the living cells provide an unprecedented tool for developing
and testing drugs to treat the disorder.

“We’re dealing with the human brain. You can’t just do a biopsy
on living patients,” said Goldstein. “Instead, researchers have
had to work around, mimicking some aspects of the disease in
non-neuronal human cells or using limited animal models.
Neither approach is really satisfactory.”

Goldstein and colleagues extracted primary fibroblasts from
skin tissues taken from two patients with familial AD (a rare,
early-onset form of the disease associated with a genetic
predisposition), two patients with sporadic AD (the common form
whose cause is not known) and two persons with no known
neurological problems. They reprogrammed the fibroblasts into
induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that then differentiated
into working neurons.

The iPSC-derived neurons from the Alzheimer’s patients
exhibited normal electrophysiological activity, formed
functional synaptic contacts and, critically, displayed
tell-tale indicators of AD. Specifically, they possessed
higher-than-normal levels of proteins associated with the
disorder.

With the in vitro Alzheimer’s neurons, scientists can more
deeply investigate how AD begins and chart the biochemical
processes that eventually destroy brain cells associated with
elemental cognitive functions like memory. Currently, AD
research depends heavily upon studies of post-mortem tissues,
long after the damage has been done.

“The differences between a healthy neuron and an Alzheimer’s
neuron are subtle,” said Goldstein. “It basically comes down to
low-level mischief accumulating over a very long time, with
catastrophic results.”

The researchers have already produced some surprising findings.
“In this work, we show that one of the early changes in
Alzheimer’s neurons thought to be an initiating event in the
course of the disease turns out not to be that significant,”
Goldstein said, adding that they discovered a different early
event plays a bigger role.

The scientists also found that neurons derived from one of the
two patients with sporadic AD exhibited biochemical changes
possibly linked to the disease. The discovery suggests that
there may be sub-categories of the disorder and that, in the
future, potential therapies might be targeted to specific
groups of AD patients.

Though just a beginning, Goldstein emphasized the iPSC-derived
Alzheimer’s neurons present a huge opportunity in a desperate
fight. “At the end of the day, we need to use cells like these
to better understand Alzheimer’s and find drugs to treat it. We
need to do everything we can because the cost of this disease
is just too heavy and horrible to contemplate. Without
solutions, it will bankrupt us – emotionally and financially.”

Funding for this research came, in part, from the California
Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the Weatherstone
Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Hartwell
Foundation, the Lookout Fund and the McDonnell Foundation.

A patent application has been filed on this technology by the
University of California, San Diego. For more information, go
to: http://techtransfer.universityofcalifornia.edu/NCD/22199.html[1]

Co-authors are Mason A. Israel and Sol M. Reyna, Howard Hughes
Medical Institute and UCSD Department of Cellular and Molecular
Medicine and UCSD Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program; Shauna
H. Yuan, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and UCSD Department of
Cellular and Molecular Medicine and UCSD Department of
Neurosciences; Cedric Bardy and Yangling Mu, The Salk Institute
for Biological Studies; Cheryl Herrera, Howard Hughes Medical
Institute and UCSD Department of Cellular and Molecular
Medicine; Michael P. Hefferan, UCSD Department of
Anesthesiology; Sebastiaan Van Gorp, Department of
Anesthesiology, Maastricht University Medical Center,
Netherlands; Kristopher L. Nazor, Department of Chemical
Physiology, The Scripps Research Institute; Francesca S.
Boscolo and Louise C. Laurent, UCSD Department of Reproductive
Medicine; Christian T. Carson, BD Biosciences; Martin Marsala,
UCSD Department of Anesthesiology and Institute of
Neurobiology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia; Fred H.
Gage, The Salk Institute of Biological Studies; Anne M. Remes,
Department of Clinical Medicine, Neurology and Clinical
Research Center, University of Oulu, Finland; and Edward H.
Koo, UCSD Department of Neurosciences.

About Alzheimer’s disease
An estimated 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease,
according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Two-thirds are women.
By 2050, as many as 16 million Americans are projected to have
the disease. In 2011, the economic cost of caring for
Alzheimer’s patients exceeded $183 billion, projected to rise
to $1.1 trillion by 2050. Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading
cause of death in the United States, killing more than 75,000
Americans annually. Currently, there are no drugs to prevent,
alter or cure the disease.

Video: To watch or download video of Goldstein explaining the
challenges of Alzheimer’s disease research and the findings of
this Nature paper, go to http://vmg.ucsd.edu/download/Media%20Release%20Footage/[2] and click
on
“L.Goldstein-StemCellDerivedNeurons.”

###

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Need muscle for a tough spot? Turn to fat stem cells

Posted: January 28, 2012 at 12:52 pm


In diseases like [1] or a
[2], “[3]
begins to die and undergoes its normal wounding processes,”
said Engler, a [4]
professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego.
“This damaged tissue is fundamentally different from a
mechanical perspective” than healthy tissue.

Transplanted [5] might be
able to replace and repair diseased muscle, but up to this
point the transplants haven’t been very successful in muscular
dystrophy patients, he noted. The cells tend to clump into hard
nodules as they struggle to adapt to their new environment of
thickened and damaged tissue.

Engler, postdoctoral scholar Yu Suk Choi and the rest of the
team think their fat-derived stem cells might have a better
chance for this kind of therapy, since the cells seem to thrive
on a stiff and unyielding surface that mimics the damaged
tissue found in people with MD.

In their study in the journal Biomaterials, the
researchers compared the development of bone marrow stem cells
and fat-derived stem cells grown on surfaces of varying
stiffness, ranging from the softness of brain tissue to the
hardness of bone.

Cells from the fat lineage were 40 to 50 times better than
their bone marrow counterparts at displaying the proper
proteins involved in becoming muscle. These proteins are also
more likely to “turn on” in the correct sequence in the
fat-derived cells, Engler said.

Subtle differences in how these two types of cells interact
with their environment are critical to their development, the
scientists suggest. The fat-derived cells seem to sense their
“niche” on the surfaces more completely and quickly than
marrow-derived cells. “They are actively feeling their
environment soon, which allows them to interpret the signals
from the interaction of cell and environment that guide
development,” Choi explained.

Perhaps most surprisingly, [6] grown from
the fat stem cells fused together, forming myotubes to a degree
never previously observed. Myotubes are a critical step in
muscle development, and it’s a step forward that Engler and
colleagues hadn’t seen before in the lab.

The fused cells stayed fused when they were transferred to a
very stiff surface. “These programmed cells are mature enough
so that they don’t respond the environmental cues” in the new
environment that might cause them to split apart, Engler says.

Engler and colleagues will now test how these new fused cells
perform in mice with a version of muscular dystrophy. The cells
survive in an environment of stiff tissue, but Engler cautions
that there are other aspects of diseased tissue such as its
shape and chemical composition to consider. “From the
perspective of translating this into a clinically viable
therapy, we want to know what components of the environment
provide the most important cues for these ,” he
said.
[7]


Provided by University of California - San Diego (news[8] :
web[9])


References

  1. ^
    (www.physorg.com)
  2. ^
    (www.physorg.com)
  3. ^
    (www.physorg.com)
  4. ^
    (www.physorg.com)
  5. ^
    (www.physorg.com)
  6. ^
    (www.physorg.com)
  7. ^
    (www.physorg.com)
  8. ^ news
    (www.physorg.com)
  9. ^ web
    (www.ucsd.edu)

See the article here:
Need muscle for a tough spot? Turn to fat stem cells

Posted in Stem Cells | Comments Off on Need muscle for a tough spot? Turn to fat stem cells

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