Researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT) of Worcester, Massachusetts, reported in Science magazine that they have successfully developed cell types from embryonic monkey stem cells created not from cloned embryos, but from eggs alone in a process called parthenogenesis.
The researchers have developed a “pluripotent” stem cell line that can, in theory, be used to create any sort of adult cell. The team has already been successful in generating neurons, heart muscle, smooth muscle and a number of other kinds of cells, demonstrating what they called “broad differentiation capabilities of primate stem cells derived by parthenogenesis.”
The cell line has grown continuously for 10 months.
The stem cell line was produced by collaboration between researchers from ACT, led by Jose Cibelli and Michael West, Wake Forest researchers Kathleen A. Grant and Kent Vrana, Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Mayo Clinic. Grant and Vrana are both professors of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest University.
The potential clinical applications include treatment of degenerative diseases and dysfunctions where symptoms are caused by a malfunction in the actions of specific types of cells. West said that treatments developed from parthenogenetically derived cells could be used for a wide range of diseases, including Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, heart disease and diabetes.
In parthenogenesis, an egg cell is forced to begin development without being fertilized by a sperm. The egg develops into a ball of 50-200 cells called a blastocyst. In the body or in vitro, a blastocyst grown from a fertilized egg would then develop into an embryo. However, the blastocyst that develops during parthenogenesis is typically not viable, since it lacks certain factors from the sperm needed to develop properly.
The stem cell lines used by the ACT-Wake Forest collaboration were developed from such a reproductively non-viable blastocyst.
Stem cell research has attracted attention as a potential panacea for conditions where traditional transplants would be rejected. Stem cells can be made from a patient’s own tissue and that are, therefore, compatible. In a press release issued by ACT, all of the researchers emphasized that human clinical applications will require years of further research and development.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
