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Some nerve! Now bypass stem cells
Thursday February 02, 2012 08:12:04 AM,
IANS
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Washington:
Scientists have successfully converted mouse skin cells directly
into cells that become the three main parts of the nervous system,
bypassing the stem cell stage, throwing up many new possibilities
in the medical world.
This new study is a substantial advance over the previous paper in
that it transforms the skin cells into neural precursor cells, as
opposed to neurons.
While neural precursor cells can differentiate into neurons, they
can also become the two other main cell types in the nervous
system: astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.
The finding is an extension of a previous study by the same group
from the Stanford University School of Medicine, showing that
mouse and human skin cells can be turned into functional neurons
or brain cells.
The multiple successes of the direct conversion method overrides
the idea that pluripotency (the ability of stem cells to become
nearly any cell) is necessary for a cell to transform from one
type to another, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences reports.
"We are thrilled about the prospects for potential medical use of
these cells," said Marius Wernig, study co-author and assistant
professor of pathology and member, Stanford's Institute for Stem
Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, according to a Stanford
statement.
Beside their greater versatility, the newly derived neural
precursor cells offer another advantage over neurons because they
can be cultivated in large numbers in the lab, a feature critical
for their long-term usefulness in transplantation or drug
screening.
"We've shown the cells can integrate into a mouse brain and
produce a missing protein important for the conduction of
electrical signal by the neurons," said Wernig, who co-authored
the study with graduate student Ernesto Lujan.
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