Press releases
Please quote Nature Biotechnology as the source of these items.
The September 2007 issue of Nature Biotechnology is available online.
September 2007
Human embryonic stem cells do a heart good
Heart attacks may respond to treatment with cells derived from human embryonic stem (ES) cells, according to a paper published online this week in Nature Biotechnology. Charles Murry and colleagues find that rats subjected to experimental heart attacks show improved cardiac function four weeks after receiving a transplant of heart muscle cells generated in a dish from human ES cells.
Human ES cells are considered a promising source of cells for regenerative medicine because, in theory, they can be taken off the laboratory shelf, coaxed into becoming any kind of specialized cell for repairing damaged organs and given to any patient. But many problems must be solved before this vision is reduced to practice.
Murry and colleagues address two critical problems in heart regeneration. First, they improve the efficiency with which ES cells are converted into heart cells. Second, they improve the survival of such heart cells after transplantation into damaged animal hearts using a 'survival cocktail'—a mixture of chemicals that blocks various causes of cell death. By combining these techniques, they succeeded in slowing the progression of heart failure in the treated animals.
Cardiomyocytes derived from human embryonic stem cells in pro-survival factors enhance function of infarcted rat hearts pp 1015 - 1024
Michael A Laflamme, Kent Y Chen, Anna V Naumova, Veronica Muskheli, James A Fugate, Sarah K Dupras, Hans Reinecke, Chunhui Xu, Mohammad Hassanipour, Shailaja Police, Chris O'Sullivan, Lila Collins, Yinhong Chen, Elina Minami, Edward A Gill, Shuichi Ueno, Chun Yuan, Joseph Gold & Charles E Murry
Published online: 26 August 2007 | doi 10.1038/nbt1327
Adult stem cell with muscle
A ready source of muscle progenitor cells might be useful for treating diseases that involve muscle atrophy, such as muscular dystrophy. In a paper to be published online this week in Nature Biotechnology, Johnny Huard and colleagues describe a type of cell in human adult skeletal muscle with a greater capacity to regenerate muscle tissue than progenitor cells (or ‘satellite cells’) previously isolated from muscles.
The new progenitors, called myoendothelial cells, express cell-surface markers of both satellite cells and endothelial (blood vessel) cells. They are easily isolated using fluorescently labelled antibodies against the markers and a fluorescence-activated cell sorting machine. They can be differentiated in culture dishes towards muscle, bone and cartilage. Studies in mice indicate that myoendothelial cells are much more efficient at forming muscle fibres in the body than both satellite and endothelial cells: 1000 myoendothelial cells transplanted into the injured skeletal muscle of immunodeficient animals produce on average 89 muscle fibres, whereas the same number of endothelial or satellite cells generate only 9 and 5 muscle fibres, respectively. Tests to investigate the safety of myoendothelial cells suggest that they have no propensity to form tumours.
Prospective identification of myogenic endothelial cells in human skeletal muscle pp 1025 - 1034
Bo Zheng, Baohong Cao, Mihaela Crisan, Bin Sun, Guangheng Li, Alison Logar, Solomon Yap, Jonathan B Pollett, Lauren Drowley, Theresa Cassino, Burhan Gharaibeh, Bridget M Deasy, Johnny Huard & Bruno Péault
Published online: 2 September 2007 | doi 10.1038/nbt1334