New Finding May Aid Stem Cell Collection
University of Cincinnati: July 27, 2005
Stem cell research has become
extremely popular lately. Stem cells hold great potential for medical processes. However, there are many properties of these certain types of cells that make the cells particularly difficult to research. One such property is the regeneration of stem cells. Stem cells can easily be found in an embryo, but the process of taking stem cells from embryos is dangerous.
Scientists have therefore started working on generating stem cells alone, or taking stem cells in a safe manner from adults. In adults, stem cells exist most commonly in bone marrow. However, stem cells are cluttered in certain areas of the bone marrow, and are extremely hard to extract. Only one in every 100000 bone marrow cells is a stem cell. Scientists in Cincinnati are currently trying to understand how stem cells migrate from the blood stream to an organ.
Adult stem cell (bone marrow) transplantation is used in cancer and genetic blood disorder treatments. The stem cells are injected so as to regenerate new cells in damaged portions of the body. When the stem cells are injected, they move through the bloodstream in order to get to the damaged area of the body. This particular transfer was recently studied, with informative results.
Doctors in Cincinnati discovered that there is a group of
proteins known as the RAC GTPase that plays a large role in stem cell transfer. This group of proteins directs the stem cells through the blood stream, ending up in the bone marrow. Scientists found that by restricting that particular family of proteins, stem cells are controllable. Thus, scientists are currently working on restricting the proteins enough to be able to extract stem cells out of bone marrow into the bloodstream for easier collection.
Although stem cell reserves in adults are distinctly small, taking the cells from adults rather than embryos is more humane and safe. Since bone marrow is so hard to extract from, it is important that some technique be developed in order to insure that adult stem cells can easily be collected.