Shaped blood elements from fibroblasts
Canadians created human blood from his skinMembrane based on PhysOrg materials: Scientists turn skin into blood
Human skin cells have been turned into precursors and mature blood cells.
The breakthrough in cell therapy was made by Mick Bhatia and his colleagues from the Research Institute of Oncology and Stem Cells at McMaster University.
The introduction of the OCT4 gene encoding a certain transcription factor, as well as the addition of cytokines, made it possible to reprogram skin fibroblasts so that they gave birth to lines of granulocytes, monocytes, megakaryocytes and erythroid cells, the authors of the experiment report in their article in Nature (Eva Szabo et al., Direct conversion of human fibroblasts to multilineage blood progenitors).
Unlike their predecessors, Batia and his team were able to create blood cells from the skin without the intermediate stage of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS-cells). This is a new look at the management of specialization, and this, according to the authors of the work, is a great opportunity to avoid a whole list of complications associated with the use of pluripotent cells (they, for example, are capable of causing tumors).
Erythrocytes from stem cells were obtained a couple of years ago, people learned to generate iPS from skin cells in 2007. In 2009, it was shown that virtually any cells can be converted into stem cells, but in 2010 it turned out that there was something wrong with the reprogrammed cells.
In particular, erythrocytes created from iPS cannot synthesize the adult form of hemoglobin," Nature clarifies. Instead, they produce fetal, dominant in a newborn, but normally less than 1% of adult hemoglobin.
Biologists from McMaster University have shown not only that skin fibroblasts can be converted into all major blood cells, but also that the latter regularly perform their functions, including red blood cells synthesizing adult hemoglobin. It is important that this transformation has been demonstrated for skin cells taken from both young and elderly people," says a press release from the university (McMaster scientists turn skin into blood).
In the figure, the black arrows indicate fibroblasts transformed into primitive erythrocytes, the white ones – into mature ones.
Perhaps in a few years, with surgery, cancer treatment or various blood diseases like anemia, patients will be able to get blood from their own skin cells.
"We know how it works, and I think we can even improve the process," Batia said. "Now we will move on to creating other types of human cells from the skin, as we have encouraging data." Clinical trials of the technology may begin in 2012
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru08.11.2010