The top picture shows fibroblasts stained blue, and the bottom picture shows the amount of fibroblasts that transformed into endothelial cells after treatment with poly I:C and VEGF |
The new method and Cook and his other researchers proposed involves exposing the fibroblasts to poly I:C (polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid) that will cause the cells to think that they are being attacked by a virus. Poly I:C is a small segment of RNA that binds to the host cell receptor TLR3. This viral attack caused the fibroblast cells to reorganize their nuclear chromatin, which allowed genes that had previously been blocked off to be expressed. Factors, such as VEGF, were the applied to the fibroblasts because these factors are known to cause certain cells to convert into endothelial cells. This treatment caused 2% of all the fibroblasts in the body to be transformed into endothelial cells, the same percentage outcome as using a virus to transform the cells. Cooke claims that he has unpublished work that shows that up to 15% of the fibroblasts can be converted using his method.
In order to prove the effectiveness of the new cells, Cooke injected the cells into mice that had the need for new blood vessels in their hind limbs for circulation. Once the cells were introduced to the mice, the blood vessel number increased in the hind limbs and blood flow was improved. Cooke believes that his findings will pave the way for more studies to continue and possibly lead to finding ways to regenerate mass amounts of damaged tissue in humans.
This is a very interesting study that goes to show that there are many different ways to manipulate the cells of the human body, and as our knowledge of genetics continues to grow, many more interesting findings like this will occur.
Original Article: Reprogrammed cells grow into new blood vessels
Jackie,
ReplyDeleteI found this article very interesting.I am curious to see Dr. Cooke's further work especially future published work showing that up to 15% of the fibroblasts can be converted using his method. Additionally, I am hopeful that this research will lead to even more discoveries, in particular, finding new ways to regenerate mass amounts of damaged tissue.