Skin Cells Transformed Into Stem Cells
Researchers have found an amazingly quick and seemingly safe way to transform ordinary skin cells into stem cells and muscle cells.
The researchers said Thursday their approach could provide a way to generate tissue in a new science called regenerative medicine, which doctors hope may eventually lead to ways to repair injuries and possibly someday even replace whole organs.
Dr. Derrick Rossi of Harvard Medical School and colleagues said they were studying new ways to make induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells.
These iPS cells remarkably resemble embryonic stem cells — the body’s true master cells — which can give rise to all of the body’s cells and tissue and which also flourish in lab dishes.
It takes only 3 or 4 genes to turn back time on skin cells and make them behave like stem cells. But most ways of doing this involve using a virus to carry the new genes into the cell, or DNA, and these techniques can lead to other problems, including tumors.
Rossi and his colleagues tried a new method, using RNA instead of DNA. RNA is the compound that carries out DNA’s instructions. Surprisingly, RNA from four stem cell genes worked to transform ordinary skin cells into iPS cells. These cells could be made to form beating heart cells, nerve cells and other cell types.
The researchers reported they were also able to transform the skin cells into muscle cells.
“We believe that our approach has the potential to become a major and perhaps even central enabling technology for cell-based therapies and regenerative medicine,” Rossi and colleagues wrote.
“The methodology described here offers several key advantages over established reprogramming techniques,” they added.
They said it should also make it easier for less specialized and experienced scientists to make and work with the cells.
Other researchers who work with human embryonic stem cells, said using iPS cells was not an alternative to the controversial embryonic cells, but that all types of stem cell research were equally important as scientists learn how to use them.
The future of embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to morph into any type of cells, is being debated in US courts and in Congress. Opponents of stem cell research say it is wrong to destroy a human embryo for any reason, even if the embryos are leftovers from fertility clinics that are destined for destruction.
The US government is being sued by opponents and the case is being considered by federal courts. A US appeals court ruled Tuesday that federal funding for the research may continue pending a full appeal.
Those who support embryonic stem cell research say they are working on a legislation to make it clear what the government may pay for.
Rossi and colleagues report their findings in the journal Cell Stem Cell, which has been published online.
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