Main Category: Stem Cell Research
Article Date: 16 Sep 2013 – 0:00 PDT
The study, carried out by CNIO, was led by Manuel Serrano, the director of the Molecular Oncology Programme and head of the Tumoural Suppression Laboratory. The study was supported by Manuel Manzanares’s team from the Spanish National Cardiovascular Research Centre (CNIC).
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A CNIO team is the first to produce embryonic stem cells in living adult organisms
“This data tell us that our stem cells are much more versatile than Yamanaka’s in vitro iPSCs, whose potency generates the different layers of the embryo but never tissues that sustain the development of a new embryo, like the placenta”, said the CNIO researcher.
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Manuel Serrano added that: “We can now start to think about methods for inducing regeneration locally and in a transitory manner for a particular damaged tissue”.
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de Investigaciones Oncologicas (CN, Centro Nacional. “A CNIO team is the first to produce embryonic stem cells in living adult organisms.” Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 16 Sep. 2013. Web.
16 Sep. 2013. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/266052.php>
In comparison with the cells obtained with the technique developed by Yamanaka, the stem cells obtained by CNIO therefore represent an even earlier embryonic state, with greater capacity for differentiation.
CNIO researchers have taken another step forward, by achieving the same as Yamanaka, but this time within the same organism, in mice, without the need to pass through in vitro culture dishes. Generating these cells within an organism brings this technology even closer to regenerative medicine.
One of the greatest achievements in recent biomedical research was in 2006 when Shinya Yamanaka managed to create embryonic stem cells (pluripotent stem cells, induced in vitro, or in vitro iPSCs) in a laboratory from adult cells, via a cocktail of just four genes. Yamanaka’s discovery, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2012, opened a new horizon in regenerative medicine.
The authors emphasise that the possible therapeutic applications of their work are still distant, but they admit that, without doubt, it might mean a change of direction for stem cell research, for regenerative medicine or for tissue engineering.
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Embryonic stem cells are the main focus for the future of regenerative medicine. They are the only ones capable of generating any cell type from the hundreds of cell types that make up an adult organism, so they are the first step towards curing illnesses such as Alzheimer, Parkinson’s disease or diabetes. Nevertheless, this type of cell has a very short lifespan, limited to the first days of embryonic development, and they do not exist in any part of an adult organism.
Researchers have also discovered that these embryonic stem cells, obtained directly from the inside of the organism, have a broader capacity for differentiation than those obtained via in vitro culture. Specifically, they have the characteristics of totipotent cells: a primitive state never before obtained in a laboratory.
A team from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) has become the first to make adult cells from a living organism retreat in their evolutionary development to recover the characteristics of embryonic stem cells.
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