This morning Cell magazine published an intriguing article about a breakthrough made by several American scientists researching how stem cells get made. There is a small family of genes responsible for keeping stem cells "pluripotent," a state which allows the cell to turn into almost any other cell. Maintaining pluripotency is crucial for stem cell therapy.
Even more important is discovering how to restore pluripotency to cells that have already differentiated into a neurons or skin cells. Stem cells taken from blastocysts, or embryos, are pluripotent But there is a limited supply of such cells for both practical and policy reasons (regulations against using embryos in experiments, for instance). So one of the gold rings of the stem cell research community is discovering how to make differentiated cells pluripotent agian.
And that's where today's discovery comes in. The research team led by UC Santa Barbara's Na Xu discovered that the family of genes which turns a stem cell pluripotent are themselves regulated by a small molecule called micro-RNA. They located the exact kind of micro-RNA responsible for controlling these stem cell genes, called miR-145. A rise in levels of miR-145 causes stem cells to differentiated. So keeping levels of miR-145 low may allow researchers more granular control of the pluripotency of cells.
The bottom line: Researchers have more control than ever over the process that turns ordinary cells into pluripotent stem cells and maintains them in that state. We've tightened our grip on the on/off switch for pluripotency.
http://io9.com/5234609/two-stem-cell-research-breakthroughs-you-should-know-about
Even more important is discovering how to restore pluripotency to cells that have already differentiated into a neurons or skin cells. Stem cells taken from blastocysts, or embryos, are pluripotent But there is a limited supply of such cells for both practical and policy reasons (regulations against using embryos in experiments, for instance). So one of the gold rings of the stem cell research community is discovering how to make differentiated cells pluripotent agian.
And that's where today's discovery comes in. The research team led by UC Santa Barbara's Na Xu discovered that the family of genes which turns a stem cell pluripotent are themselves regulated by a small molecule called micro-RNA. They located the exact kind of micro-RNA responsible for controlling these stem cell genes, called miR-145. A rise in levels of miR-145 causes stem cells to differentiated. So keeping levels of miR-145 low may allow researchers more granular control of the pluripotency of cells.
The bottom line: Researchers have more control than ever over the process that turns ordinary cells into pluripotent stem cells and maintains them in that state. We've tightened our grip on the on/off switch for pluripotency.
http://io9.com/5234609/two-stem-cell-research-breakthroughs-you-should-know-about