STUDY: Rat Embryos Survive After Adult Marrow Stem Cell Transplants

[Murray Charters <mcharters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

STUDY: Rat Embryos Survive After Adult Marrow Stem Cell Transplants
BY JAMIE TALAN - STAFF WRITER
Newsday, NY - May 11, 2004, 4:59 PM EDT

Scientists have transplanted adult stem cells from the bone marrow of rats into 
the brains of rat embryos and found
that thousands survive into adulthood, raising the possibility that someday 
such a process could prevent or treat
developmental abnormalities in the womb.

Dr. Ira Black, chairman of the department of neuroscience at the University of 
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, said the cells took on the properties of 
brain cells, migrating to specific regions
and taking up the characteristics of neighboring cells.

"They exhibited the same flexibility in the living brain as we had observed in 
culture," said Black, director of the
school's Stem Cell Center. His findings were published Wednesday in the Journal 
of Neuroscience.

Over the past few years, scientists have debated the theory that bone marrow 
stem cells, which are plentiful throughout
the human life cycle, could possess chameleon properties, and with coaxing, 
become many types of brain cells. Many
reports have disputed this, saying that the bone marrow stem cells merely fuse 
onto a nearby brain cell. Other
scientists working with adult bone marrow stem cells say that the stem cells 
don't actually trigger new cells to grow
in the adult brain, but do work like factories to pump new life into the 
remaining cells.

Black and his colleagues injected adult bone marrow stem cells into the brain 
ventricles of embryonic rats and watched
them migrate throughout the brain. When they reached their destination, they 
expressed the same genes as other cells in
the area. And thousands per cubic millimeter survived into adulthood, Black 
said.

Black and his colleagues used a specific type of bone marrow cell called a 
stromal cell, taken from the leg bones of
adult rats. Once in the ventricles, they migrate along the same fiber tracks 
that neuronal stem cells travel. "We see
this potentially as an appropriate treatment for prenatal disease, mental 
retardation and congenital conditions," Black
said.

The hope is that a patient's own bone marrow might someday be the source for 
replacing brain cells lost to neurological
illness and brain trauma, experts say, eliminating the need to use embryonic 
stem cells.

Dr. Alexander Storch of the University of Ulm, Germany, recently took bone 
marrow stromal cells from six healthy people
and converted the cells into immature neural stem cells. He presented the 
findings at the American Academy of Neurology
meeting last month. "A single cell culture could grow all major brain cell 
types," said Storch, who used specific
growth factors to help them differentiate. They lost half of the cells during 
the conversion process, yet still
generated a high number of new cells.

The Storch team is now transplanting the cells into mice with multiple 
sclerosis, Parkinson's and stroke. In the stroke
study, the labeled adult stromal cells migrated to the area surrounding the 
stroke damage, he said. And they had all of
the chemical, electrical and functional properties of neurons.

"It shows that bone marrow stromal cells may have a potential to treat or 
ameliorate certain neurological diseases,"
added Dr. David Hess, chairman and professor of neurology at the Medical 
College of Georgia. Hess wrote a review
article on bone marrow stem cells in last month's Archives of Neurology. The 
stem cell research world "is polarized
over these cells," he added. "We shouldn't give up on them."

SOURCE: Newsday, NY - May 11, 2004


* * *

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn