Formation of blood cells Researchers simulate human bone marrow tissue

Researchers are developing novel artificial bone marrow

The readiness for bone marrow donation has increased in recent years. This is especially good news for patients with blood cancer because: Stem cell donation can save lives. Hope to make new research results Swiss scientists. They were able to reproduce human bone marrow tissue.

Stem cell donation can help leukemia patients

"In Germany alone, every year more than 11,000 people suffer from leukemia or suffer from other disorders of blood formation such. Eg anemia or immune deficiencies as well as lymphomas ", writes the German stem cell donor database on their website. "Many patients today can be helped by the transfer of stem cells from a healthy stem cell donor," it continues. In the future, new findings from Swiss researchers may be of benefit to patients. The scientists have succeeded in developing a novel bone marrow.

Swiss researchers have developed an artificial tissue in which human blood stem cells remain functional for a long time. (Image: University of Basel)

Bone marrow generates billions of blood cells every day

In the bone marrow several billion blood cells are formed daily. Blood stem cells, which are located in special niches in the bone marrow, ensure constant supply.

These can multiply themselves and mature into red and white blood cells that enter the blood from the bone marrow.

For years, researchers have been attempting to rebuild natural bone marrow in the laboratory to better understand the mechanisms of blood formation and to develop new therapies, such as the treatment of leukemia (blood cancer).

However, this has proved to be extremely difficult as the blood stem cells in traditional in vitro models lose their properties to proliferate and differentiate into different types of blood cells.

Novel artificial bone marrow

Researchers led by Professor Ivan Martin from the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel and Professor Timm Schroeder from the Department of Biosystems at the ETH Zurich have now created a novel artificial bone marrow niche in which the stem and progenitor cells could multiply over several days.

According to a statement, scientists have developed artificial tissue that mimics some of the complex biological properties of natural bone marrow niches.

According to the researchers, they combined human mesenchymal stromal cells with a bone-like, porous, three-dimensional framework made of ceramic in a so-called perfusion bioreactor, in which biological and synthetic materials can be combined.

The result is a structure covered by an extracellular matrix into which cells can insert. In this aspect, the artificial tissue is very similar to the natural bone marrow niches.

In this environment, it was possible to largely preserve the functionality of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells.

Their findings were recently published in the journal PNAS.

Tool for personalized research

The new method is also suitable for producing tailored bone marrow niches that have specific molecular properties and in which individual proteins can be inserted or removed.

According to the experts, this opens up a whole range of perspectives: from research into factors that influence human blood formation to the screening of medicines with the aim of predicting individual patients' response to a particular treatment.

"With bone and bone marrow cells from patients, we could model blood disorders such as leukemia in vitro. In an environment that consists exclusively of human cells and ideally incorporates personalized, individual circumstances, "explain Ivan Martin and Timm Schroeder. (Ad)