“Latest Stem Cells News”

A medical model developed for regenerating bladders by using stem cells

Researchers in the United States have developed a medical model for regenerating bladders using stem cells harvested from a patient’s own bone marrow. The research, published in STEM CELLS, is especially relevant for paediatric patients suffering from abnormally developed bladders, but also represents another step towards new organ replacement therapies.

The research, led by Dr Arun Sharma and Earl Cheng from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and Children’s Memorial Research Center, focused on bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) taken from the patient. Previously studies into the regenerative capacity of cells in bladders have focused on animal models, but these have translated poorly in clinical settings.

“Advances in the use of bone marrow stem cells taken from the patient opens up new opportunities for exploring organ replacement therapies, especially for bladder regeneration”, said senior author Sharma. “Several findings from our study have demonstrated the plasticity of stem cells derived from bone marrow which make them ideal for this type of work.”

The team discovered that bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have phenotypic and physiological similarities with bladder smooth muscle cells (bSMCs) implying that MSCs can serve as an alternative cell source for potentially damaged bSMCs.

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Scientists seeking new ways to fight maladies ranging from arthritis and osteoporosis to broken bones that won’t heal have cleared a formidable hurdle, pinpointing and controlling a key molecular player to keep stem cells in a sort of extended infancy. It’s a step that makes treatment with the cells in the future more likely for patients.

Controlling and delaying development of the cells, known as mesenchymal (pronounced meh-ZINK-a-mill) stem cells, is a long-sought goal for researchers. It’s a necessary step for doctors who would like to expand the number of true skeletal stem cells available for a procedure before the cells start becoming specific types of cells that may – or may not – be needed in a patient with, say, weak bones from osteoporosis, or an old knee injury.

What are mesenchymal stem cells? where are they found in the human body? What are their most promising clinical applications? Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic of Columbia University gives us an answer to these questions and and an outlook on the future of mesenchymal stem cells.

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With veterinarians across the country training to use stem cells for tendon and ligament repair, a professor at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) wants to take the technology a step further by applying them to chronic, cell-based diseases.

Richard Vulliet, DVM, is very early into the work. But he is optimistic about the evidence as it exists, of course, and he may have had a success.

Vulliet has treated four dogs with degenerative myelopathy with their own stem cells, which he prefers to call mesenchymal stem cells or pluripotent marrow stromal cells. The terminology has evolved and those names are more descriptive, he says (…)

Vulliet says he got interested in treating these conditions because he was working with mesenchymal stem cells and their interaction with connective tissue, and it was boring. Then he came across two papers.

In one of the papers, Japanese researchers described treating induced cardiomyopathy in experimental rats (Circulation 2005;112:1128-35). They reported that when the cells were injected into the myocardium, function improved, and there was evidence that the cells formed new vascular structures and produced collagen.

In the other paper, researchers at Tulane University in New Orleans induced spine injuries in experimental rats and treated them with mesenchymal stem cells. When they treated the animals immediately after the injury was induced, there was no apparent effect. However, when they waited one week before treating, they found that at five weeks, seven rats out of 12 could lift their trunks with their hind legs. By comparison, none of the 10 rats that were not treated showed similar signs of improvement.

Vulliet says notions of how mesenchymal stem cells might enhance the healing process have expanded beyond the idea that the cells migrate to a site of injury, differentiate into the proper type of cell and incorporate into the tissue. They might modulate immune response as well (…)

Stem cells are an ideal entrée into real-animal research, Vulliet explains. Experiments with human subjects and stem cells are not generally allowed, and federal regulators are unclear about whether they have the authority to regulate such research, since the cells are not drugs and usually are autologous tissue (…)

from http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=14031

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Mesenchymal stem cells are present in placental blood and could represent the new frontier for tissue and organ regeneration. The cells were identified at the cell factory at Milan’s Policlinico Hospital and will be the subject of a meeting on mesenchymal stem cells organized by the Milan hospital.

Isolated and preserved in the Milan biobank for the first time for use in future treatments, the cells come from blood that is collected at birth. Plasma that has been used for transplants in patients with serious diseases like leukemia and lymphoma and represent a potential reserve of mesenchymal stem cells, which are the foundation of regenerative medicine.
The purification procedure, developed by researchers from the research and development lab of the ‘Franco Calori’ Cell Factory at the Policlinico Hospital, led by Lorenza Lazzari, requires placental blood donations to be processed within hours of collection. Purified and cultivated mesenchymal stem cells are then tested further with various animal tissue regeneration models.

These cells have been used experimentally on acute kidney damage in collaboration with Giuseppe Remuzzi’s group of the Mario Negri Institute in Bergamo. “With placental blood,” says Lazzari, “we hope to be able to repair bone, regenerate livers and kidneys, and operate in complex repair processes for other important organs and systems like the heart and nervous system.”
At the meeting, FIRST (the forum of Italian researchers on mesenchymal and stromal stem cells), the Italian group on mesenchymal stem cells, chaired by Lazzari with Massimo Dominici of the University of Modena as Vice-President, will be presented.

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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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