Stem Cells from Skin Used to Treat Parkinson’s in Rats
The discovery of a technique that trains skin cells to behave like embryonic skim cells may allow scientists a new avenue for research apart from the controversial use of human embryos.
The results of recent experiments may increase the possibility of one day being able to transplant perfectly matched cells to patients with brain diseases such as Parkinson’s.
Researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that these induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) serve as a perfect human building block and have a variety of potential uses.
"It’s a proof of principle experiment that argues, yes, these cells may have the therapeutic promise that people ascribe to them," said Rudolf Jaenisch, a stem cell expert at the Whitehead Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Scientists first damaged the brains of rats to mimic the effects of Parkinson’s disease, which is caused by damage to brain cells that carry dopamine. Although there is no cure, embryonic stem cells have proven to be effective in providing some patients with relief.
Researchers witnessed sizable improvements in the rats that received IPSCs.
"This is the first demonstration that re-programmed cells can integrate into the neural system or positively affect neurodegenerative disease," said MIT’s Marius Wernig.
What may be most crucial to the introduction of IPSCs is the fact that they provide an alternative to human embryonic stem cells, which have faced strong opposition although they have been presumed to be the most powerful.
Ole Isacson of McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School and colleagues used green fluorescent protein to mark the cells that had become dopamine-making neurons, so that only these desired cells were transplanted into the rat brains.
"We have just started now to work on the human equivalents," Isacson said in a telephone interview.
The cells grew well, he added.
"The efficiency of our cell transplantation therapy was striking," the researchers wrote — the transplanted cells grew well in eight of the nine rats and they all showed improved movement after treatment.
A potential danger of cell transplantation is that they can differentiate into undesired tissues.
ISPCs were first produced in 2006 from mouse cells followed by those from human cells in 2007.
Researcher Shinya Yamanaka’s team at Kyoto University was the first to use IPS on mice in 2006. A year later, James Thomson and colleagues at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Shinya Yamanaka’s team at Kyoto University both reported the creation of IPS from adult human cells.
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