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Science Scores New Breakthrough in Adult Cell Transformation : 8th Feb 10

According to an Irish Times report, scientists have reached yet another milestone in the effort to produce replacement cells for any tissue type in the human body. A team from Stanford University in California has converted cells from a mouse’s tail directly into brain cells. Though much research remains to be done to confirm the breakthrough, the research team believes they have found an effective way to produce any of the many tissue types in the body.

The goal, as ever, is to be able to produce healthy replacement cells as treatments for conditions such as motor neuron disease and Parkinson’s. The method is much simpler to achieve than that which Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University developed in 2006. He astounded the world’s science community by finding a way to convert ordinary skin cells into pluripotent stem cells such as those found in the developing human embryo.

These cells can change into any of the body’s 200-plus distinct cell types. Now a Stanford team headed by Marius Wernig, an assistant professor of pathology at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, has devised a way to take connective tissue cells from the tail skin of mice and make them convert directly into neurons. Their findings were published last month in the journal Nature.

Scientists can produce the neurons without first having to push the skin cells back to being embryonic stem cells. It is a direct transition between the connective tissue cell, a fibroblast and the neurons. The earlier Japanese work relied on using four biochemical substances to make the skin cell convert to a pluripotent stem cell.

In this new development, Prof Wernig came up with a combination of just three factors produced by genes in the neuron that were enough to make a connective tissue cell convert into a neuron. He used an initial trial-and-error method, inserting 19 different genes found in neurons into the fibroblast.

He was able to reduce this until he could make the fibroblast convert directly to neurons, using just three genes. The new approach carries huge implications for the advancement of cell-replacement research. Most of the work has aimed at making pluripotent stem cells and then using them to produce replacement tissues.

Prof Wernig’s approach seems to be able to cut out the stem cell, changing cells directly into the replacement cell type required. The Irish Times. January 28.

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Family & Life

Science Scores New Breakthrough in Adult Cell Transformation : 8th Feb 10

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