Microglia Generation For High-Throughput Experiments Optimized – Technology Networks

Microglia derived from stem cells. Credit: NYSCF

Scientists from the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Research Institute have developed a robust, efficient method for deriving microglia, the immune cells of the brain, from human stem cells. Microglia are increasingly implicated in neurological disorders including Alzheimers disease, Parkinsons disease and multiple sclerosis, among many others. However, research into the role of human microglia in these disorders has long been hampered by the inability to obtain them from the human nervous system.

This new protocol now enables scientists around the world to generate this critical cell type from individual patients and improve our understanding of the role of microglia neurological malfunction. NYSCFs mission is to bring cures to patients faster, said Susan L. Solomon, CEO and cofounder of NYSCF. One way we work towards this goal is by developing methods and models that lift the entire field of stem cell research. This new protocol is the perfect example of the type of method that will enable researchers around the world to accelerate their work.

Published in Stem Cell Reports, this microglia protocol is optimized for use in high-throughput experiments, such as drug screening and toxicity testing among other large-scale research applications, and has the benefit of allowing such experiments to be carried out on multiple patient samples. The scientists determined that the protocol is robust and reproducible, generating microglia from sixteen induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines, stem cells that are created from individual patients.

Microglia from humans have long been a desired research model, but are difficult to obtain for laboratory experiments. The NYSCF protocol provides a new source of human microglia cells, which can be generated from disease patient samples and will complement studies in mouse models to better understand the role of microglia in health and disease. Microglia generated by the NYSCF protocol will thus provide a critical tool to investigate microglia dysfunction in central nervous system disorders and advance complex disease modeling in a dish.

This article has been republished frommaterialsprovided byNYSCF. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Microglia Generation For High-Throughput Experiments Optimized - Technology Networks

Route to cancer stem cell death ironed out – Chemical & Engineering News

Cancer stem cells are bad actors. They enable cancers to metastasize, or spread, and help revive cancers after the malignancies go dormant. One of the few agents that can effectively attack them is a small molecule called salinomycin. But scientists havent understood how the compound kills the cells.

Now, researchers have discovered salinomycins mechanism (Nat. Chem. 2017, DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2778). The findings reveal a key weakness of cancer stem cells that could lead to the design of other drugs to help fight the cells.

To discover the mechanism, Raphal Rodriguez of Institut Curie and Frances National Center for Scientific Research, Maryam Mehrpour of Institut Necker Enfants Malades and INSERM, and coworkers first tried to create a more potent version of salinomycin by modifying it with groups of varying polarity and charge. The most potent was ironomycin, in which one of salinomycins hydroxyl groups was replaced by a short amine-alkyne chain. Ironomycin has an order of magnitude greater potency than salinomycin at killing breast cancer stem cells, both in culture and in mice.

They then used in vivo click chemistry on ironomycins alkyne group to label the compound with a fluorescent dye, enabling them to track where the compound goes when in cancer stem cells. They had expected it to distribute evenly throughout the cells and were surprised when it instead localized in lysosomes, which are cellular compartments with enzymes that break down certain molecules.

This led them to the mechanism: Salinomycin, or ironomycin, binds cellular iron and sequesters it in lysosomes. The high concentration of lysosomal iron then triggers a process called ferroptosisin which iron catalyzes the so-called Fenton reaction, producing reactive oxygen species that break lysosomal membranes, oxidize cell lipids, and cause cell death. The mechanism is not specific to cancer stem cells, Rodriguez says, but these cells are more susceptible to salinomycins or ironomycins activity because they are more dependent on iron and may be less efficient at scavenging free radicals than conventional cells.

The study is the first to characterize salinomycins mechanism of action at a molecular level, which is in itself a major step forward and an impressive feat, given the structural complexity of this compound, says Piyush Gupta of the Whitehead Institute and MIT, who discovered salinomycins activity against cancer stem cells. It is also the first to convincingly show that iron plays an unusually important role in regulating the malignant properties of cancer stem cells. These are both important contributions that will guide the development of new therapies targeting the most malignant of cancer cells.

Selective mechanisms for killing cancer stem cells have been a long-standing goal of cancer drug discovery, but few mechanisms have been identified, says Brent R. Stockwell of Columbia University, who discovered ferroptosis. This paper suggests that iron sequestration in lysosomes could be one such effective mechanism for targeting cancer stem cells.

One possible drawback to a cancer-stem-cell-targeting compound is that other cells in the tumor might still survive, he adds. So you would likely need a combination of drugs targeting cancer stem cells and non-stem-cell tumor cells. And there might be toxicity to normal stem cells, so this would need to be evaluated as research on stem-cell-targeted agents progresses.

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Route to cancer stem cell death ironed out - Chemical & Engineering News

Lab-grown blood stem cells produced at last – Nature.com

Rio Sugimura

Researchers made these blood stem cells and progenitor cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells.

After 20 years of trying, scientists have transformed mature cells into primordial blood cells that regenerate themselves and the components of blood. The work, described today in Nature1, 2, offers hope to people with leukaemia and other blood disorders who need bone-marrow transplants but cant find a compatible donor. If the findings translate into the clinic, these patients could receive lab-grown versions of their own healthy cells.

One team, led by stem-cell biologist George Daley of Boston Childrens Hospital in Massachusetts, created human cells that act like blood stem cells, although they are not identical to those found in nature1. A second team, led by stem-cell biologist Shahin Rafii of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, turned mature cells from mice into fully fledged blood stem cells2.

For many years, people have figured out parts of this recipe, but theyve never quite gotten there, says Mick Bhatia, a stem-cell researcher at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, who was not involved with either study. This is the first time researchers have checked all the boxes and made blood stem cells.

Daleys team chose skin cells and other cells taken from adults as their starting material. Using a standard method, they reprogrammed the cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are capable of producing many other cell types. Until now, however, iPS cells have not been morphed into cells that create blood.

The next step was the novel one: Daley and his colleagues inserted seven transcription factors genes that control other genes into the genomes of the iPS cells. Then they injected these modified human cells into mice to develop. Twelve weeks later, the iPS cells had transformed into progenitor cells capable of making the range of cells found in human blood, including immune cells. The progenitor cells are tantalizingly close to naturally occurring haemopoetic blood stem cells, says Daley.

Bhatia agrees. Its pretty convincing that George has figured out how to cook up human haemopoetic stem cells, he says. That is the holy grail.

By contrast, Rafiis team generated true blood stem cells from mice without the intermediate step of creating iPS cells. The researchers began by extracting cells from the lining of blood vessels in mature mice. They then inserted four transcription factors into the genomes of these cells, and kept them in Petri dishes designed to mimic the environment inside human blood vessels. There, the cells morphed into blood stem cells and multiplied.

When the researchers injected these stem cells into mice that had been treated with radiation to kill most of their blood and immune cells, the animals recovered. The stem cells regenerated the blood, including immune cells, and the mice went on to live a full life more than 1.5 years in the lab.

Because he bypassed the iPS-cell stage, Rafii compares his approach to a direct aeroplane flight, and Daleys procedure to a flight that takes a detour to the Moon before reaching its final destination. Using the most efficient method to generate stem cells matters, he adds, because every time a gene is added to a batch of cells, a large portion of the batch fails to incorporate it and must be thrown out. There is also a risk that some cells will mutate after they are modified in the lab, and could form tumours if they are implanted into people.

But Daley and other researchers are confident that the method he used can be made more efficient, and less likely to spur tumour growth and other abnormalities in modified cells. One possibility is to temporarily alter gene expression in iPS cells, rather than permanently insert genes that encode transcription factors, says Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell researcher at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. She notes that iPS cells can be generated from skin and other tissue that is easy to access, whereas Rafiis method begins with cells that line blood vessels, which are more difficult to gather and to keep alive in the lab.

Time will determine which approach succeeds. But the latest advances have buoyed the spirits of researchers who have been frustrated by their inability to generate blood stem cells from iPS cells. A lot of people have become jaded, saying that these cells dont exist in nature and you cant just push them into becoming anything else, Bhatia says. I hoped the critics were wrong, and now I know they were.

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Lab-grown blood stem cells produced at last - Nature.com

Researchers Are Using Stem Cell Tech to End Neurological Disorders – Futurism

In Brief

The human body is a melding of different systems designed to function well together. In some cases, however, a mechanism that protects the body can also cause it harm, like with the specializedshield of endothelial cells called the blood-brain barrier that keeps toxins in the blood from entering the brain.

Due to a genetic defect, the blood-brain barrier could prevent essential biomolecules needed for normal brain development from passing through. An example is the Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome (AHDS), which is a psychomotor disease resulting from a defective gene that controls the influx of thyroid hormones to the brain. This rare but severe disorder is also unique to humans, making it very difficult to develop treatments that could be lab tested on animals.

So, to study this unique disorder, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles used the cells of AHDS patients to recreate the patients blood-brain barriers via induced pluripotent steam (iPS) cellstechnology. What they learned using the model gave the researchers some leads on potential therapies for the disease. They published their study in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

The researchers managed to make a laboratory model for AHDS. This is the first demonstration of using a patients cells to model a blood-brain barrier defect, senior author, Eric Shusta, explained in a press release. If we had just the (compromised) neural cells available, we wouldnt have been able to identify this key characteristic of AHDS.

Thanks so their innovation, theres now a framework to develop new treatmentsthat could prevent or mitigate the debilitating effects of AHDS, according to senior author Clive Svendsen from Cedars-Sinai.

Furthermore, the research could also apply to other neurological disorders that may also have roots in a dysfunctional blood-brain barrier, like Alzheimers disease and Huntingtons disease. The significance of this study expands beyond the limits of AHDS research, to the possibility of stem cell modeling the blood-brain barrier component in many other neurological diseases, said Gad Vatine, lead author for the study, in the press release.

The study is another proof of how stem cells can revolutionize the future of medicine.

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Researchers Are Using Stem Cell Tech to End Neurological Disorders - Futurism

Researchers uncover new way of growing stem cells – Phys.Org

May 16, 2017 by David Stacey Credit: University of Western Australia

Research led by The University of Western Australia has discovered a new, simple and less expensive way of growing human stem cells.

Using hydrogel, a gel with a gradient that can be used to mimic the stiffness of human body tissues, the researchers were able to generate positive outcomes for the growth of stem cells.

Dr Yu Suk Choi from UWA's School of Human Sciences at The University of Western Australia led the international collaboration which also included researchers from the University of California, San Diego (USA) and Max Planck Institute for Medical Research (Germany).

"Stem cells work by using the 'stiffness' of surrounding tissue as a gauge to identify the way they need to behave in a particular environment in the human body," Dr Choi said.

"By using hydrogel to mimic the stiffness of tissue, we found we could 'trick' the stem cells into behaving in particular ways to help them grow and encourage the cells to behave in positive, regenerative ways.

"Hydrogel is simple and inexpensive to produce and could have a wide range of applications in biology labs that don't always have the infrastructure available to use other methods to mimic the stiffness of tissue to aid stem cell growth."

Dr Choi said the research may have important uses in combating serious illnesses affecting the human population.

"Many degenerative diseases result in changes to tissue stiffness which alters the behavior of cells," he said.

"But by controlling tissue stiffness we can revert cell behavior back to normal, and change their behavior at the disease site into more regenerative behaviour. This will help us us to treat diseases such as cancer that are currently very difficult to treat."

The next step for the researchers will be to use hydrogel with patient originated cells to further understand the effect of tissue stiffness on cell behaviour.

Explore further: Inbuilt body clocks link breast stiffness to cancer risks

More information: William J. Hadden et al. Stem cell migration and mechanotransduction on linear stiffness gradient hydrogels, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1618239114

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Researchers uncover new way of growing stem cells - Phys.Org

Texas leans into unproven stem cell treatments, to the dismay of … – STAT

H

e made the emotional plea to his colleagues: Pass this bill.

It might give somebody like my wife a chance to walk, Texas Representative Drew Springer said through tears late Thursday at the state Capitol in Austin. Id trade every one of my bills Ive passed, every single one of them, to get the chance to hear HB 810.

HB 810 is one of three bills being considered in the Texas Legislature that would make it easier for sick people to try unproven therapies at their own risk, and cost. Springers bill would allow clinics offering unapproved stem cell treatments to treat patientsin Texas. HB 661 would permit people with chronic illness to get therapies in early-stage clinical trials not just terminally ill patients, as the states current right-to-try law does. And HB 3236 would allow companies to charge patients for unproven therapies.

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The debate in Texas echoes a national discussion over how much access patients should have to experimentaldrugs. For the lawmakers supporting the measures, the issue is about the ability to make ones own decisions about health care and not let bureaucracy get in the way of that. But for stem cell researchers and many patient advocates, the bills are dangerous; they make it easier for people to be fleeced or potentially harmed by treatments with little evidence suggesting that they work, orare safe.

With patients demanding experimental drugs, right to try is becoming the law of the land

When patients get desperate, they have a capacity to suspend disbelief, said Sean Morrison, a stem cell biologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. When offered the opportunity of a therapy they believe in, even without data and if the chances of benefit are low, theyll fight for access to that therapy. The problem is there are fraudulent stem cell clinics that have sprung up to exploit that.

The personal appeal from Springer, whose wife is paralyzed from the waist down, has worked, at least for now. HB 810 and the other two billspassed the House on Friday with no opposition. They have now moved to the Senate, which only has two weeks to take them up before the Legislature breaks on May 29 for two years.Governor Greg Abbott has indicated he supports HB 810.

Stem cells hold tremendous promise as therapies, but experts say they are still experimental and are not ready to be widely deployed outside regulated and limited trials. Yet clinics offering unproven, and sometimes dangerous, stem cell treatments to eager patients have proliferated around the country in recent years even without the state law, there areat least 71 clinics selling unapproved stem cell therapies in Texas alone.Stem cell scientists fear that the Texas bill would lend legitimacy to the field, provide false hope to patients, and even embolden hucksters touting stem cells as miracle cures for everything from diabetes to multiple sclerosis to spinal injuries.

It may sound like an appealing idea to allow seriously ill patients accelerated access to experimental therapies, Sally Temple, the president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, wrote to Texas lawmakers this month. But in the absence of full clinical testing, these bills will allow snake oil salesmen to sell unproven and scientifically dubious therapies to desperate patients.

When offered the opportunity of a therapy they believe in, even without data and if the chances of benefit are low, theyll fight for access to that therapy.

Sean Morrison, stem cell biologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

In the letter, Temple also wrote that the bills would cost more lives than they save and will undermine confidence in Texas medical system. She cited the three women who were blinded after receiving stem cell procedures at a Florida clinic. At least one of the women thought she was participating in a clinical trial.

For the most part, stem cell clinics and their claims are unchecked. Theyhave largely avoided regulatory scrutiny because they typically take a patients own stem cells and inject them back into the person, meaning the cells are considered minimally manipulated,taken, perhaps, from belly fat, purified, and injected near the persons knee. Plus,stem cell clinics typically do not publish data about their interventions and their patients results, so outside researchers have not been able to verify even their supposed successes.

If these clinics really did have a cure for something, you think they would collect systematic data and publish it in a journal, so people would know, Morrison said.

In a phone interview the morning after his speech, Springer, a Republican who represents a North Texas district, said he wanted to maintain some level of oversight for stem cell therapies and that the state attorney generals office or health department could step in should problems arise. But he said he leaned toward letting people have treatments they think can help them, especially because the drug approval process takes so long.

Stem cell clinics hawking unproven therapies sprout up across US

Springers wife was injured in a diving accident when they were dating and has been in a wheelchair since. He said they stored cord blood from when one of their children was born 16 years ago in hopes that the stem cells from that could one day help his wife. For now, he wants the Texans who head to places like Panama and China for stem cell therapies to be able to get them in their home state, under state law.

We do have a responsibility not to let every snake oil salesman come in, Springer said, but when we do have these rays of hope, we have to make sure theyre available.

Springer is only an author of HB 810, not the other two measures. The lead authors of the other two measures, Republican Representative Tan Parker for HB 661, and Republican Representative Kyle Kacal for HB 3236, did not respond to requests for comment.

HB 810 would give some legal recognition to the stem cell clinics that are already operating in Texas, an indication that troubles some researchers. Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell scientist at the University of California, Davis, co-led a nationwide survey that found Texas has more stem cell clinics than many other states, but that the businesses were part of a national pattern. But he said he hasnt seen other states consider the types of policies Texas is weighing now.

The kind of murky status quo that exists now for regulating stem cell clinics is quite different than there being laws on the books that explicitly say that what the clinics are doing is legal at the state level, Knoepfler wrote in an email.

A few years ago, in one famous case, a Houston company, Celltex Therapeutics, moved its treatment operations to Mexico after a warning from the Food and Drug Administration. But experts wonder if the FDA would take such an action again if the bills became law in Texas, even though the agency would still maintain its authority to do so under federal law. That concern also stems from the feeling that the regulation-averse Trump administration wouldnt endorse such actions, especially because Vice President Mike Pence is a proponent of right-to-try measures and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, credits a stem cell treatment from Celltex for helping relieve his back problems.

Perrys story and Springers emotional testimony highlight the uphill battle scientists have faced in recent years as right-to-try laws have been passed around the country. Powerful personal stories of patients cured by unapproved drugs or who die before they can get access to an experimental drug have swayed many lawmakers from both parties.

They look at us like were the devil, which pisses me off because were doing it the right way, said David Bales, the chairman of Texans for Cures, a stem cell research advocacy group that opposes the three bills as written.

Baless group wants to fund legitimate clinical trials involving stem cell treatments to help determine in what ways the cells can help patients. But for now, its top target is stopping HB 3236, which would open the door to patients paying for experimental therapies. Virtually all reputable clinical trials provide experimental treatments to patients at no cost and ofteneven pay participants for their effort.

We dont think that patients in the most vulnerable positions should pay for an unproven drug, Bales said.

Springer, the state representative, said he had not spoken to the governor about HB 810. But Abbott, who has been paralyzed from the waist down since a 1984 accident, when a tree branch fell on him while he was out for a run, tweeted a message of support to Springer early last Friday.

I look forward to signing HB 810, the tweet said.

Andrew Joseph can be reached at andrew.joseph@statnews.com Follow Andrew on Twitter @DrewQJoseph

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Texas leans into unproven stem cell treatments, to the dismay of ... - STAT

Maryland fund awards $8.5 million for stem cell research – Baltimore Sun

The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission has awarded $8.5 million to 29 projects that will explore how human stem cells can regenerate heart tissue, treat muscular dystrophy and sickle cell disease, and aid diabetes management, among other medical conditions.

The awards, made through the state-funded Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, are intended to accelerate work by researchers and startup companies using human stem cells to advance medical treatments.

"We want to accelerate the transformation from science and technology to commercial products and clinical treatments," said Dan Gincel, the fund's executive director.

The initiative has awarded $139 million to 400 projects since it was established in 2006. The fund and commission are managed by TEDCO, the Maryland Technology Development Corp.

The grants support projects at various stages, from discovery and gathering data, through clinical trials and steps toward commercialization.

As more projects move closer to commercialization, TEDCO expects to accelerate the pace of the fund's awards, said Gincel, who is also TEDCO's vice president of University Partnerships.

The $8.5 million awarded this month was part of the state's fiscal 2017 budget. The budget for fiscal year 2018, which starts July 1, includes $8.2 million for stem cell research, Gincel said.

This year's recipients come from six companies and six research institutions, including Johns Hopkins University; University of Maryland, Baltimore; and University of Maryland, College Park.

Other research institute recipients are based at the Hussman Institute for Autism in Catonsville, the Lieber Institute for Brain Development and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, both in Baltimore.

Longeveron, TissueGene, MaxCyte, Propagenix, Seraxis and 3Dnamics are the companies that received grants.

All the companies are based in Montgomery County except for Longeveron, which is based in Florida. Longeveron's clinical trial for treating a heart condition in infants is being conducted at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Gincel said.

sarah.gantz@baltsun.com

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Maryland fund awards $8.5 million for stem cell research - Baltimore Sun

TEDCO awards $8.5 million in stem cell grants – Baltimore Business Journal

Baltimore Business Journal

TEDCO awards $8.5 million in stem cell grants Baltimore Business Journal The money will be provided through the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, which supports stem cell research grants and loans to public and private entities. To qualify for funding, the research must be conducted in Maryland and must involve use of human ...

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TEDCO awards $8.5 million in stem cell grants - Baltimore Business Journal

Skin regeneration, universal donor stem cells and new SMA treatment approach – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Injured skin repairs itself with the help of stem cells, but how this process works isnt well understood. A new study proposes that differentiated skin cells turn back into stem cells to heal the wound.

The process is regulated by a protein called Gata6 made by sebaceous duct cells. In response to injury, these cells migrate out into the skin and de-differentiate into stem cells, which then give rise to replacement skin, according to researchers led by Fiona Watt of Kings College London.

The study was published in Nature Cell Biology. When placed online, the study, Wounding induces dedifferentiation of epidermal Gata6 cells and acquisition of stem cell properties, can be found at j.mp/skincells. Watt was senior author. Giacomo Donati, also of Kings College London, was senior author.

Our data not only demonstrate that the structural and functional complexity of the junctional zone is regulated by Gata6, but also reveal that dedifferentiation is a previously unrecognized property of post-mitotic, terminally differentiated cells that have lost contact with the basement membrane, the study stated.

This resolves the long-standing debate about the contribution of terminally differentiated cells to epidermal wound repair.

One of the most-anticipated results of stem cell research would be generation of replacement tissues for those lost by disease or injury. But the potential for immune rejection limits this potential. While immune-matching can be achieved through patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells, this process takes time and is costly.

Immune-tolerant allogenic stem cells have been produced in a study reported Monday in Nature Biotechnology. These cells were produced by making them express minimally variant human leukocyte antigen class E molecules. Production of these molecules causes a self response that inhibits attack by NK natural killer cells.

When published, the study, HLA-E-expressing pluripotent stem cells escape allogeneic responses and lysis by NK cells, can be found online at j.mp/allogenic. David W Russell was senior author and Germn Gornalusse was first author. Both are of University of Washington, Seattle.

A study conducted in a mouse model of spinal muscular atrophy suggests that symptoms might be reduced by increasing the activity of synapses between sensory and motor neurons. It suggests there may be more than one path to improving or preserving muscle function in SMA patients.

SMA is caused by the deterioration and eventual death of spinal motor neurons. The only treatment shown to affect the underlying course of the disease, Spinraza, was researched by Ionis Pharmaceuticals in Carlsbad and brought to market in a partnership with Biogen.

The study was published Monday in Nature Neuroscience. George Z Mentis was the senior author and Emily V Fletcher was first author. Both are of Columbia University in New York. When placed online, the study, Reduced sensory synaptic excitation impairs motor neuron function via Kv2.1 in spinal muscular atrophy, can be found at j.mp/smanew.

Researchers treated the mice with kainate, which restored near-normal synaptic functioning and improved motor functioning. While the chemical induces seizures, the mice were given doses lower than the seizure threshold.

Because of kainates seizure-inducing potential, the researchers are looking for safer chemicals to stimulate the synaptic connections.

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1020

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Skin regeneration, universal donor stem cells and new SMA treatment approach - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Stem Cells in Plants and Animals Behave Surprisingly Similarly – Bioscience Technology

A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows that the behaviour of stem cells in plants and animals is surprisingly similar. The researchers were able to produce mathematical equations that reveal very small differences in the behaviour of the proteins. The results can hopefully be used in stem cell research involving humans.

"The plant and animal kingdoms were separated through evolution more than 1.6 billion years ago. It is surprising that the interactions between the handful of key genes that control the fate of each stem cell are so similar in both cases," said Carsten Peterson, professor at the Faculty of Science at Lund University.

Peterson is one of the researchers behind the recent study on differences and similarities between animal and plant stem cells. With a background in theoretical physics, he and his colleagues have tackled the stem cells from a different perspective, which proved successful.

By formulating mathematical equations, the researchers have performed a detailed study of the proteins that are central to the stem cells in mammals and plants. The proteins are linked to the genes that control the stem cells. In particular, the researchers have studied how these proteins mutually affect one another through interaction as the cells evolve.

"Although the proteins in mammalian and plant stem cells are very different when studied separately, there are major similarities in the ways in which they interact, that is, how they strengthen or weaken each other," said Peterson.

Stem cells are a hot topic in medical contexts, especially when it comes to cancer and autoimmune diseases. A stem cell is capable of evolving into several different types of cells and is thus a sort of mother cell to all of the body's specialized cell types. In animals, these specialized cells can never return to a stem cell state on their own. In plants, however, they can.

"Specialized cells of plants can return to being stem cells without external manipulation. In the plant world, there is a natural reprogramming process," said Peterson.

The mathematical equations show that very small differences are sufficient to explain why plant cells are so flexible while cells of mammals require artificial reprogramming to return to a stem cell state.

"When cells are influenced externally - artificially for animals or naturally for plants - the minor differences in interaction play a greater role, and the differences appear to be of greater significance," said Peterson.

He believes that a lot of work remains with regard to the efficiency of reprogramming of animal cells and therefore hopes that insights from the plant world can contribute. The current study provides clues about why it is so much easier to make a cell go back to being a stem cell in plants compared to mammals.

Reprogramming is a frequently used word in stem cell contexts today, ever since the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 2012. One of the prize winners, Shinya Yamanaka, had demonstrated how to externally manipulate cells to return to an embryonic stem cell state by increasing the concentration of certain proteins. Turning back the clock this way has enormous potential in clinical contexts. For example, on an individual basis, skin cells can be reprogrammed into embryonic stem cells, and be made into desired cell types by manipulating certain proteins. This process is known as regenerative medicine.

The study was recently published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.

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Stem Cells in Plants and Animals Behave Surprisingly Similarly - Bioscience Technology