Dr. Himanshu Patel's Blog

PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS

Pluripotent stem cells have ability to differentiate in many types of cells, approximately around 200 types of cells. The most common example as we all know is embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are the cells derived from blastocyst of 5 days old embryo formed by in vitro fertilization. Embryonic stem cells have many limitations in terms of ethics, religion and law. Therefore scientists have focused their research for induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). Induced pluripotent stem cells are the cells artificially derived from non pluripotent cells like an adult somatic cells by inducing a forced expression of specific genes. These types of cells can overcome the limitation of embryonic stem cells and able to provide full benefit of it. Scientists are showing their keen interest in establishing relation of these cells in full extent with natural pluripotent stem cells. For that it is necessary to define properties, which proves the pluripotency of the cells and standardize method to prove that. At present literatures define following properties to show the pluripotency of the cells:

• Formation of a teratoma
• Unlimited self-renewal in culture
• Expression of a specific set of transcription factors (for example, OCT4/POU5F1, SOX2, and NANOG)
• Expression of a unique set of cell surface markers (such as SSEA-3, SSEA-4, TRA-1-60, and TRA-1-81)
• Formation of embryoid bodies
• A specific pattern of gene expression assayed by whole genome profiling
• A specific epigenetic profile

According to latest work E-cadherin is the molecule responsible for giving all these pluripotent properties to the cells. E-cadherin is the intracellular glue which gives cell – cell adhesion. This is the reason for having strong adhesion between cells in blastocyst. Apart from cell glue E-cadherin is shown responsible for regulation of the genes associated with cell proliferation, cell death, metabolism of fats and sugars and translating the messages received from outside of the body. E-cadherin is also found responsible for cancer progression from benign to malignant teratoma. This finding helps us to know why embryonic stem cells have tendency of developing teratoma!

Some time the treatment of some clinical conditions may not be acceptable on the basis of social, religious, legal or ethical background by patients. In such case researchers have to stretch their thinking and work hard to find out alternate solution.

I present here one case from my experience. A 33 year old woman having infertility due to Asherman’s syndrome came to Infertility specialist for the treatment.  After not succeed with conventional treatment, she was suggested for oocyte donation and surrogacy. She was agree and accepted the option of oocyte donation but not for surrogacy.

Here clinicians and scientist stretch their thinking and figure out autologus adult stem cells could be a worth option. As stem cells are used to increase vasculogenesis in some of the heart problems like  Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM), Perivascular disorders etc, and here also it requires to increase blood supply in the area of endometrium. The woman was counseled for the experimental stem cells therapy as alternate to surrogacy. She gave her consent for the same. Her bone marrow was aspirated and Stem Cells were processed at StemCure and transplanted by Clinician in to her uterus. As a result of this stem cell treatment a lady has regenerated good endometrium thickness, vascularity and finally she is conceived without surrogate mother.

This opens a new window for the patients, suffering from infertility due to poor endometrium development and wants to enjoy motherhood from the day of conceiving a baby.

There is no joy for a mother in the world than talking to her baby in her womb!

Reference :  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

Recently I came to know about the finding that stem cells can be developed in to specific type of cell by controlling its shape. I see it as a revolutionary aspect in stem cells research though  it still require a lot work to be done and may not be available very soon for routine practice. This shows beautiful combination of two different technology and how they counterpart to each other for better prospect of humankind.

Adult autologus stem cell treatment is the most promising treatment in coming days for many diseases which are not responding well to conventional medicinal therapy.  These cells are cultured and differentiate in to various lineages for their application like Mesenchymal cells, osteoblasts, chondrocytes etc. Normally this is done with the help of biochemical moiety. This innovative research suggests a new technique of culturing and differentiating the cells with the help of scaffold and based on the shape of the cell instead of biochemical moiety. This may provide a good alternate to expensive and very temperature sensitive biochemical substances used in culture on the cells.

The current technique of adult cell culture is used for more than decade and so far there is no incident is reported for its hazardous effect, even though some researchers are worried about the effect of biochemical substances on developing cells. This technique would be able to waive their doubt.

This has definitely initiates a new trend in tissue engineering as morphology of the cell can be used for differentiation of the cells. Evaluation of various types of scaffold made using various types of material and technology for particular lineage of the cells. Nanotechnology already proved its wide application in various field including medicine. Now it is going to prove its imminent existence in the field of tissue engineering and bio technology.