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Stem Cell Research Breakthrough

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0920074831.htm

*Emphasis added is my own *

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Date: 2005-09-20

Adult Human Neural Stem Cell Therapy Successful In Treating Spinal Cord Injury
Irvine, Calif. -- Researchers at the UC Irvine Reeve-Irvine Research Center have used adult human neural stem cells to successfully regenerate damaged spinal cord tissue and improve mobility in mice.

The findings point to the promise of using this type of cells for possible therapies to help humans who have spinal cord injuries. Study results appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.

In their study, Brian Cummings, Aileen Anderson and colleagues injected adult human neural stem cells into mice with limited mobility due to spinal cord injuries. These transplanted stem cells differentiated into new oligodendrocyte cells that restored myelin around damaged mouse axons. Additionally, transplanted cells differentiated into new neurons that formed synaptic connections with mouse neurons.

Myelin is the biological insulation for nerve fibers that is critical for maintenance of electrical conduction in the central nervous system. When myelin is stripped away through disease or injury, sensory and motor deficiencies result and, in some cases, paralysis can occur. Previous Reeve-Irvine research has shown that transplantation of oligodendrocyte precursors derived from human embryonic stem cells restores mobility in rats.

"We set out to find whether these cells would be able to respond to the injury in an appropriate and beneficial way on their own," Cummings said. "We were excited to find that the cells responded to the damage by making appropriate new cells that could assist in repair. This study supports the possibility that formation of new myelin and new neurons may contribute to recovery."

Mice that received human neural stem cells nine days after spinal cord injury showed improvements in walking ability compared to mice that received either no cells or a control transplant of human fibroblast cells (which cannot differentiate into nervous system cells). Further experiments showed behavioral improvements after either moderate or more severe injuries, with the treated mice being able to step using the hind paws and coordinate stepping between paws whereas control mice were uncoordinated.

The cells survived and improved walking ability for at least four months after transplantation. Sixteen weeks after transplantation, the engrafted human cells were killed using diphtheria toxin (which is only toxic to the human cells, not the mouse). This procedure abolished the improvements in walking, suggesting that the human neural stem cells were the vital catalysts for the maintained mobility.

This study differs from previous work using human embryonic stem cells in spinal cord injury because the human neural stem cells were not coaxed into becoming specific cell types before transplantation.

"This work is a promising first step, and supports the need to study multiple stem cell types for the possibility of treating of human neurological injury and disease," Anderson said.

Desiree L. Salazar and Mitra Hooshmand of UCI, Nobuko Uchida and Stan J. Tamaki of StemCells Inc., and Robert Summers and Fred H. Gage of the Salk Institute of Biological Studies participated in the study. Adult human neural stem cells were provided by StemCells Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif. The National Institutes of Health and the Christopher Reeve Foundation provided funding support.

While the debate continues over whether future implications in stem cell research are worth the costs, there can be no doubt of evidence showing the good it can do. I find this study extremely encouraging, as this is the first time that I'm aware of in which myelin has been regrown with success. For diseases such as MS, this opens up a huge door.

The thing to note is that they used ADULT stem cells to do this.

Not the same can of worms as the public debate.

Also, our myelin regenerates just fine on its own in the peripheral nervous system (within limits). It is the spinal cord, CNS, regeneration that is the challenge. Numerous researchers are also focusing on the reasons why the peripheral nervous system spontaneously regenerates, while the central nervous system does not. It is not directly my field, so I won't get into it too much.

Ustwo, I think that you are giving the public at large too much credit for scientific knowledge. In my experience, if you say stem cells to your average Joe or Jane on the street, you get either a blank stare or a vehement diatribe about killing babies.

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I think that you are giving the public at large too much credit for scientific knowledge. In my experience, if you say stem cells to your average Joe or Jane on the street, you get either a blank stare or a vehement diatribe about killing babies.

Yea, i'll have to agree with this. After all the brainwashing, combined with complete lack of information, most people who say they are against stem cells have no idea what a stem cell is let alone the difference between the different sources. They just know it's "evil".

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Originally Posted by ObieX

I agree but that goes for the pro-stem cell research crowd as well. They seem to think that if you are not using aborted babies for it, its not happening at all due to those evil conservatives.

Ironically it seems that the fetal stem cells are less useful due to a lack of differentiation. Some differentiation is good as it is already targeted to become a specific type of tissue. This is very important since we currently do not know how to trigger this.

Yeah, I'm certainly not against the use of adult stem cells. Glad to hear something came of that.

Unfortunate that Christopher Reeve isn't around to see it. I'm sure he passed away in full confidence that his foundation would support such ground-breaking work though.

This is certainly promising research.

Research is good- and if its playing god then call me zeus- I cannot support a god that would not want us to better ourselves when we can, by whatever means are available- we see from history that a genie does not go back into the bottle, so we had best advance and embrace the new stuff, or we will be left behind........

I saw a similar article using Rats with paralysed front legs, stem cells from their nose (not sure why human stem cells were used with the mice but I aint a sceintist)injected into the spine fixed them. The stem cells (used due to their regenerative properties) can be found in the human nasal passages - this is due to implemented into hospitals within five years but at the moment can only repair minor paralysis.

Stem cells from umbilical chord blood have also been used, for over a year now, to treat neural diseases.

Although there are many uses for adult stem cells, they do have their limitations (e.g. somatic mutations, apparently a limited number of cell types that they can differentiate into, very small number, difficult to isolate). Only embryonic stem cells are easy to produce and capable of differentiating into all the body's cell types.