Australian researchers have developed a new way to reprogram fat and bone cells into induced multipotent stem cells (iMS), which have the potential to regenerate multiple tissue types. Successfully demonstrated in mice, the novel technology could eventually be used to regenerate human tissue damaged by injury, disease or ageing, including spinal discs and bone fractures.
The UNSW-led research has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The new method involves extracting adult human fat cells and treating them with a chemical compound (5-Azacytidine) known to induce cell plasticity, along with a growth factor present in the body that helps to expand the cells as they transform to iMS.
The technique is similar to salamander limb regeneration, which is also dependent on the plasticity of differentiated cells to repair multiple tissue types, depending on which body part needs replacing.
According to lead author Dr Vashe Chandrakanthan, the method presents a significant advance over other stem cell therapies currently investigated: Embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to generate any tissue of the body, potentially can also form tumours, a major concern in their therapeutic use in humans. And current methods to generate stem cells require the use of viruses, which is also problematic in clinical applications.
But the new technology has still some way to go before its full potential is becoming clear. For example, Professor Martin Pera, a stem cell expert from the University of Melbourne, pointed out in comment provided by the Australian Science Media Centre that the study does not demonstrate that these cells have properties similar to pluripotent stem cells derived from embryos or through reprogramming.
However, Dr Bryce Vissel, the Roth Fellow Head of Neurodegeneration Diseases Research Laboratory at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, pointed out that the study shows that it is possible to take mouse or human cells such as fat cells or bone cells and convert them into genuine regenerative stem cells that can effectively repair damaged tissue - a major advance, also as it relies only on the use of two widely available chemical agents.