Test tube lungs: the first pancake

Lab-grown lungs transplanted to ratsCopper news
American scientists have grown lungs in the laboratory, which were then successfully transplanted to rats, reports The Scientist (New lab-grown lungs).

A report on the study by a team of specialists led by Laura Niklason from Yale University is published in Science Express (Thomas H. Petersen et al., Tissue-Engineered Lungs for in Vivo Implantation).

Scientists cleaned the lungs removed from adult rats from cells by treating them with special solutions. Thus, the researchers obtained an extracellular matrix, which is the skeleton of an organ. After that, the skeleton was filled with lung epithelial cells and the inner lining of blood vessels taken from other individuals. With the help of cultivation in a bioreactor, the researchers managed to grow new lungs on the frame.

Micro pumps that create positive and negative
nutrient solution pressure in the trachea and pulmonary artery,
imitated the natural fluctuations of the forming lung tissue – VM.

Scientists transplanted lab-grown lungs to several rats. The organ functioned normally in different individuals from 45 minutes to two hours after transplantation. However, after that, blood clots began to form in the vessels of the lungs. In addition, the researchers recorded the leakage of a small amount of blood into the lumen of the organ. According to Niklason, these processes began due to defects in the lung framework, as well as due to incomplete overgrowth of the matrix with cells.

Despite the short time of normal operation of transplanted organs, researchers were able to demonstrate for the first time that regenerative medicine opens up new opportunities for obtaining donor lungs suitable for transplantation.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru25.06.2010