“Latest Stem Cells News”

At the base of the neck is located a reserve of stem cells that could revolutionize the fight against obesity and diabetes. These fat-burning stem cells are the mother cells of brown adipose tissue, and a study coordinated by Italian researcher Saverio Cinti of the Marches region Polytechnic Institute discovered them. The results of the study were presented at the European Obesity Congress in Amsterdam and published in Faseb Journal, the magazine of the Federation of American experimental biology societies.

“It is possible to cultivate these stem cells to grow brown adipose tissue that can be transplanted into individuals to treat serious cases of obesity or diabetes,” explained Cinti. We will be able to control excess weight gain with cold temperatures, in addition to diet and physical exercise: “cold temperatures stimulate brown adipose, and it is sufficient to maintain a temperature of 18 degrees Celsius in order to increase its function”.

- BROWN AND WHITE TISSUE: are the two components of adipose tissue, which is actually considered by scientists to be an organ. White fat accumulates fat cells and in the past has played a decisive role in helping humans tolerate long periods without food. Now it is mainly blamed for the dreaded ‘belly’. On the other hand, brown fat cells burn fat and consume glucose.

Brown fat is abundant in infants and until a short while ago, it was believed that this highly important reserve disappeared with age. Recent studies, some of which were conducted by Cinti’s group, have observed brown adipose reserves in adults. Now it has been discovered that there is a reserve of brown fat cells that exist in adults.

- FAT-BURNING STEM CELLS PRESENT IN ONE OUT OF THREE ADULTS: the discovery is based on tissue biopsies on 35 individuals who underwent thyroid operations. “We found brown adipose tissue stem cells in one-third of the patients. This result,” observed Cinti, “confirms statistical data showing that this tissue is highly present in young and thin individuals. Individuals who are not thin are probably born with less brown adipose tissue.”

- FAT-BURNING TISSUE FACTORIES: knowing where to find brown fat stem cells means being able to cultivate them in order to transplant them into patients affected by obesity or diabetes.

- ACTIVATING BROWN FAT STEM CELLS: is another strategy that is now becoming possible. Stimulating stem cells involves stimulating the growth of brown fat in order to activate a natural mechanism that burns fat.

- COLD TEMPERATURES BURN MORE FAT TISSUE: together with diet and physical exercise, cold temperatures are becoming an important ally to combat excess weight and obesity. Keeping a low temperature at home during the winter (around 18 degrees Celsius) or walking in the cold helps burn fat and glucose. Calculations show that 50 to 100 grams of brown fat tissue result in a loss of 4-5kg per year.

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In a genetic engineering breakthrough that could help everyone from bed-ridden patients to elite athletes, a team of American researchers—including 2007 Nobel Prize winner Mario R. Capecchi—have created a “switch” that allows mutations or light signals to be turned on in muscle stem cells to monitor muscle regeneration in a living mammal. For humans, this work could lead to a genetic switch, or drug, that allows people to grow new muscle cells to replace those that are damaged, worn out, or not working for other reasons (e.g., muscular dystrophy). In addition, this same discovery also gives researchers a new tool for the study of difficult-to-treat muscle cancers. The full report containing details of this advance is available online in The FASEB Journal.

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Helen Blau

Scientists have now shown that skin cells can be coaxed to behave like muscle cells and muscle cells like skin cells.
The fickleness of the cells, and the relative ease with which they make the switch, provide a glimpse into the genetic reprogramming that must occur for a cell to become something it’s not.

“We’d all like to understand what happens inside the black box (cell),” said Helen Blau, professor and member of Stanford University‘s Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute and co-author of a new study on the subject.
Harnessing these genetic makeovers will allow scientists to better understand how to induce specialised adult cells to revert to a stem-cell-like state in a process called induced pluripotency (iPS).

But Blau’s experiments suggest an intriguing alternative to iPS: that of enticing specialised adult cells to switch identities without requiring a dip into the stem cell pool.
Blau, who heads the Baxter Lab at Stanford University and her lab members fused mouse muscle cells with human skin cells, to create hybrids called heterokaryons.

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