“Latest Stem Cells News”

Artificial intestines could be created thanks to stem cells. Intestinal stem cells grown in the laboratory have been manipulated to differentiate in order to produce all of the different types of cells that form intestinal epithelium, said a Dutch study, published in ‘Nature’ magazine by Hans Clevers of the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht.
The study also outlines a more precise link between stem cells and their microenvironment.

It also offers a practical technique to generate new intestinal epithelium in the laboratory. Stem cells, which express the Lgr5 protein, were discovered on several specific regions of the intestinal epithelium, called crypts.
Clevers and his colleagues describe a long-term method transform single stem cells in culture that express Lgr5 in structures simulating the environment of the organ, which contain all of the different types of differentiated cells present in the intestinal crypts.

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Adult stem cells could be used in an innovative technique to reproduce bone in patients lacking bone in the jaw. The new method was developed to rebuild the dental arch with an outpatient procedure under local anesthesia for people who are not able to undergo certain types of dental procedures. The procedure, developed by the University of Freiburg (Germany) has been performed in Italy by Luigi Montesani, a surgeon at Tufts University in Boston. “The insertion of implants and procedures for bone augmentation,” explained Montesani, “are a priority when rehabilitating patients who have lost their teeth.”

An adequate quantity of bone, is fundamental in order to successfully insert implants, while often, losing teeth results in bone loss that makes it impossible to give patients integrated bone implants. For this reason, a new technique was developed at the University of Freiburg, which uses mesenchymal stem cells, which are removed in an outpatient procedure from the posterior iliac crest using a needle, while the patient is under local anesthesia.

After collecting and concentrating them in a special matrix, they are inserted into the defective bone during the same session “In about 4 months,” continued Montesani, “they produce the quantity of bone necessary to correct the defect and the implants can then be normally inserted, while the prosthesis, or the new teeth, are implanted after another 4 months.” According to a study on 150 operations performed using this technique at the University of Freiburg, Mainz, and Groningen (Holland), it was determined that the quantity of bone obtained is the same as in procedures, which take pieces of bone from another part of the patient’s body, usually the jaw, hip, or cranium in a much more traumatic operation.

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