Researchers from the University of Cambridge have developed a new technique for creating stem cells of the human liver and pancreas a breakthrough that could significantly transform the future of transplant therapies.
The novel method involves altering the signal pathways of cells specific to the human foregut the upper portion of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Through this manipulation, researchers were able to stop the cells from developing fully and push them into a state of constant self-renewal.
As a result, these foregut stem cells can then be further amplified by physicians, who can then form them into liver or pancreatic cells. These cells could potentially be used to treat damaged organs or tissue, in addition to conditions such as type 1 diabetes or metabolic liver disease.
According to the researchers, their technique improves upon existing methods for creating liver or pancreatic stem cells, which sometimes do not yield enough cells for transplantation.
We had identified that problem going forward: There is no process to amplify a population of cells that can be used for transplant therapy, lead author Dr. Nicholas Hannan, from the University of Cambridge Wellcome Trust MRC Stem Cell Institute, told FoxNews.com. We thought if we could develop a technique that would allow us to capture the progenitive population of cells, this would be the perfect cell type you would want to expand and have at the ready to differentiate into liver and pancreatic cells.
Currently, most stem cells begin as human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). These types of stem cells sit at the top of the hierarchy for differentiation, as they have the potential to transform into any one of the three primary embryonic layers of human cells the mesoderm, the ectoderm or the endoderm. Since these kinds of stem cells are also self-renewing, they provide physicians with a potentially infinite source of viable cells for regeneration.
However, differentiating hPSCs into liver and pancreatic cells can be tricky. To create these kinds of cells, hPSCs must be differentiated solely into the endoderm layer the tissue primarily associated with organs of the digestive and respiratory system.
But since hPSCs have a lot of variability in terms of how they are derived and the kinds of cells they can become, cell cultures intended to create pancreatic or liver cells are often contaminated with the wrong cell types, rendering the precursor population unusable for further differentiation.
To address this problem, the researchers studied the conditions under which cells differentiate specifically into the human foregut. Hannan explained that at some point during development, all cells eventually move through the foregut state when they are just part of the endoderm layer.
As we do develop organs, we have to naturally move through the foregut state, Hannan said. Everyone develops a foregut during development, and most of the techniques that produce cells actually transition through the foregut state, but isolating it is difficult. Our natural tendency is to move down the developmental program.
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