Category Archives: Stem Cells

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

17-Jul-2014

Contact: Tom Oswald tom.oswald@cabs.msu.edu 517-432-0920 Michigan State University

Not unlike looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, a team of Michigan State University researchers have found a gene that could be key to the development of stem cells cells that can potentially save millions of lives by morphing into practically any cell in the body.

The gene, known as ASF1A, was not discovered by the team. However, it is at least one of the genes responsible for the mechanism of cellular reprogramming, a phenomenon that can turn one cell type into another, which is key to the making of stem cells.

In a paper published in the journal Science, the researchers describe how they analyzed more than 5,000 genes from a human egg, or oocyte, before determining that the ASF1A, along with another gene known as OCT4 and a helper soluble molecule, were the ones responsible for the reprogramming.

"This has the potential to be a major breakthrough in the way we look at how stem cells are developed," said Elena Gonzalez-Munoz, a former MSU post-doctoral researcher and first author of the paper. "Researchers are just now figuring out how adult somatic cells such as skin cells can be turned into embryonic stem cells. Hopefully this will be the way to understand more about how that mechanism works."

In 2006, an MSU team identified the thousands of genes that reside in the oocyte. It was from those, they concluded, that they could identify the genes responsible for cellular reprogramming.

In 2007, a team of Japanese researchers found that by introducing four other genes into cells, stem cells could be created without the use of a human egg. These cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs.

"This is important because the iPSCs are derived directly from adult tissue and can be a perfect genetic match for a patient," said Jose Cibelli, an MSU professor of animal science and a member of the team.

Link:
Discovery may make it easier to develop life-saving stem cells

A woman who received stem cell treatment for paralysis needed a growth of nasal tissue removed from her spine eight years later.

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We're still learning about stem cells and what they can and can't do, so it's unsurprising that there will be a few strange accidents. One such accident happened to a woman who underwent stem cell treatment for paralysis.

Eight years ago, the anonymous woman, a US citizen, was treated at Hospital de Egas Moniz in Lisbon, Portugal, according to New Scientist. Doctors took stem cells from her nose and implanted them into her spine, hoping that the olfactory cells would develop into neural cells to help repair spinal nerve damage.

The operation was part of an early stage clinical trial exploring the potential of nasal cells in treating paralysis. Other researchers usually remove and isolate the cells, cultivating them in the lab before transplanting them, but the Lisbon team skipped this step and transplanted the cells directly.

The cells did grow -- but they remained olfactory cells, and the woman's pain worsened. Last year, surgeons removed a three-centimetre growth of nasal tissue, bone and nerve branches from the site; but it wasn't causing the pain by itself. The tissue was also producing mucus, which was pressing on her spine.

"It is sobering," Harvard Medical School stem cell researcher George Daley. "It speaks directly to how primitive our state of knowledge is about how cells integrate and divide and expand."

The Lisbon team published a paper in 2010 detailing the effects of the trial on 20 patients. Of those 20 -- out of an estimated 140 given the treatment to date -- eleven experienced improvement in their condition, one patient's condition worsened, one developed meningitis, and four others had minor adverse reactions.

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Failed stem cell treatment causes nasal growth on woman's spine

The ability to reliably and safely make in the laboratory all of the different types of cells in human blood is one key step closer to reality.

Writing today (July 14, 2014) in the journal Nature Communications, a group led by University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell researcher Igor Slukvin reports the discovery of two genetic programs responsible for taking blank-slate stem cells and turning them into both red and the array of white cells that make up human blood.

The research is important because it identifies how nature itself makes blood products at the earliest stages of development. The discovery gives scientists the tools to make the cells themselves, investigate how blood cells develop and produce clinically relevant blood products.

"This is the first demonstration of the production of different kinds of cells from human pluripotent stem cells using transcription factors," explains Slukvin, referencing the proteins that bind to DNA and control the flow of genetic information, which ultimately determines the developmental fate of undifferentiated stem cells.

During development, blood cells emerge in the aorta, a major blood vessel in the embryo. There, blood cells, including hematopoietic stem cells, are generated by budding from a unique population of what scientists call hemogenic endothelial cells. The new report identifies two distinct groups of transcription factors that can directly convert human stem cells into the hemogenic endothelial cells, which subsequently develop into various types of blood cells.

The factors identified by Slukvin's group were capable of making the range of human blood cells, including white blood cells, red blood cells and megakaryocytes, commonly used blood products.

"By overexpressing just two transcription factors, we can, in the laboratory dish, reproduce the sequence of events we see in the embryo" where blood is made, says Slukvin of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

The method developed by Slukvin's group was shown to produce blood cells in abundance. For every million stem cells, the researchers were able to produce 30 million blood cells.

A critical aspect of the work is the use of modified messenger RNA to direct stem cells toward particular developmental fates. The new approach makes it possible to induce cells without introducing any genetic artifacts. By co-opting nature's method of making cells and avoiding all potential genetic artifacts, cells for therapy can be made safer.

"You can do it without a virus, and genome integrity is not affected," Slukvin notes. Moreover, while the new work shows that blood can be made by manipulating genetic mechanisms, the approach is likely to be true as well for making other types of cells with therapeutic potential, including cells of the pancreas and heart.

The rest is here:
Genetic recipe to turn stem cells to blood

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Stem Cell Research | Stem Cell Nutrition | Stem Cells - Video

Scientists have discovered two genetic programmes that can use stem cell technology to produce human blood cells.

The method developed by a team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell researcher Igor Slukvin was shown to produce blood cells in abundance.

For every million stem cells, researchers were able to produce 30 million blood cells.

The discovery gives scientists the tools to make the cells themselves, investigate how blood cells develop and produce clinically relevant blood products.

"This is the first demonstration of the production of different kinds of cells from human pluripotent stem cells using transcription factors," explained Slukvin.

The research is important because it identifies how nature itself makes blood products at the earliest stages of development.

The new report identifies two distinct groups of transcription factors that can directly convert human stem cells into the hemogenic endothelial cells, which subsequently develop into various types of blood cells.

The factors were capable of making the range of human blood cells, including white blood cells, red blood cells and megakaryocytes, commonly used blood products.

"By over expressing just two transcription factors, we can, in the laboratory dish, reproduce the sequence of events we see in the embryo where blood is made," Slukvin added.

You can do it without a virus, and genome integrity is not affected," Slukvin noted in a paper appeared in the journal Nature Communications.

Continued here:
Genetic method to turn stem cells into blood discovered

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- In medical school, Gerald Karpman was taught that when it comes to matters of the heart, what's done is done.

"If you survived the heart attack, you survived at the level that you were going to be," he recalls. "Whatever damage was done was permanent."

That thinking has prevailed until very recently, when studies involving a handful of patients showed an infusion of stem cells might help rebuild healthy hearts in heart attack survivors.

On March 7, Karpman joined that perilous club. A dermatologist in Camarillo, California, and a former marathon runner, the 66-year-old had a rigorous routine: eight to 10 miles of walking each day and a meticulous, meatless diet.

But that morning, sitting at his home computer, a pain kicked in.

"Within about 30 seconds, I was in extreme discomfort," recalls Karpman, who says it was worse than the kidney stones he once suffered. "I couldn't sit still. I mean even driving the car (to the hospital), I couldn't put a seat belt on; I'm just moving around, just trying to think of something else."

Karpman made it to Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, where doctors used stents to reopen an artery in his heart and save his life.

As he lay recovering, he took in some grim news: Nearly 20% of his heart muscle was dead, starved of oxygen. Dead heart tissue leaves a scar, interrupting the coordinated muscle action that makes the heart such an efficient pump.

A standard measure of the heart's pumping ability is the ejection fraction, the percentage of blood in the left ventricle that is pumped out with each heartbeat. A healthy ejection fraction is between 55 and 70, according to the American Heart Association. Karpman's was 30.

Read this article:
Can heart damage be fixed?

MADISON, Wis. -

A group led by a University of Wisconsin researcher has made a discovery that could lead to making human blood out of stem cells.

The results of the research published Monday in the journal Nature Communications show two genetic programs responsible for taking stem cells and turning them into both red and white cells that make up human blood.

Scientists could use the process to make blood cells and blood products and investigate how blood cells develop.

"By overexpressing just two transcription factors, we can, in the laboratory dish, reproduce the sequence of events we see in the embryo," where blood is made, said Igor Slukvin of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

For every million stem cells produced using this method, the researchers were able to produce 30 million blood cells.

Follow this link:
UW researchers closer to turning stem cells to blood

Professor Alexander Seifalian explains stem cell technique"
Professor Alexander Seifalian explains stem cell technique"However, last year, eight years after the stem cell operation, the woman, then 28, ... Professor Alexander Seifalian explains stem...

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Professor Alexander Seifalian explains stem cell technique" - Video

Stem Cells and Alzheimer #39;s Disease - On Our Mind
Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) Can stem cells be a weapon in the fight against Alzheimer #39;s disease? Larry Goldstein, PhD director the the UC San Diego Stem Cel...

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Stem Cells and Alzheimer's Disease - On Our Mind - Video

By Maureen Salamon HealthDay Reporter Latest Womens Health News

FRIDAY, July 11, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- For the millions of women who can't cough, sneeze or laugh without losing bladder control, researchers are testing a treatment that uses stem cells to regenerate weakened urethra muscles.

In a small pilot study, European researchers found that injecting stem cells isolated from patients' own fat tissue improved or eliminated stress incontinence in all participants within a year.

Stress incontinence affects about twice as many women as men because of pelvic floor strain from pregnancy and childbirth.

Most women who choose to treat the condition undergo a procedure that inserts surgical mesh between the urethra and vagina to reduce urine leakage, urologists said. But widening controversy over the use of surgical mesh makes the idea of stem cell treatment even more attractive.

"This is an application that makes sense because of the ease of access to the urethra, which isn't a difficult area to inject," said Dr. Timothy Boone, chairman of urology at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas, who wasn't involved in the study.

Globally, similar research is under way on the use of stem cells to treat stress incontinence.

However, "a lot of other stem cell therapies are a lot more invasive," Boone added. "It's too soon to tell, but the hope would be that a significant number of women would benefit from this and avoid the possible complications of surgery."

The study is published online in the July issue of the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

Stress incontinence occurs when pelvic floor muscles supporting the bladder and urethra become too weak to prevent urine flow when pressure is placed on the abdomen. The problem can range from being a nuisance to highly debilitating.

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Stem Cells May Ease Urinary Incontinence, Study Says