Liver disease treated with stem cells

Researchers use stem cells to cure liver disease

07/13/2011

New achievements in stem cell therapy. Researchers have succeeded in using the so-called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) to cure liver disease in mice. Since the induced pluripotent stem cells are obtained by reprogramming normal body cells, they are much less controversial than the embryonic stem cells.

Scientists at the Hannover Medical School (MHH) and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster have cured a genetically determined metabolic disease in mice using the induced pluripotent stem cells. They used the iPS derived from skin cells of the animals, fixed a gene defect and were then able to use the modified iPS to cure liver disease, said the head of the working group at the MHH Institute of Cell and Molecular Pathology and junior research group leader of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Dr , Tobias Cantz, in the current issue of the journal „PLoS Biology“. For example, the stem cell researcher emphasized that it was the first time that a living organism had been cured of a disease with genetically engineered iPS.

Liver disease in mice cured with iPS
The explorers „have reprogrammed skin cells from liver sick mice to iPS and subsequently corrected the genetic defect that causes the liver disease“ was, write Dr. Cantz and colleagues. Using the special procedure of tetraploid embryo complementation, the gene-corrected iPS could be used to generate fully healthy mice. „The animals are healthy; also her lifespan is not shortened“, emphasized the stem cell researchers. This is according to Dr. Cantz has provided evidence that iPS can be genetically engineered to address the cause of genetic diseases and preserve pluripotent properties. These pluripotent properties, ie the ability to transform into all body cells, have so far mainly been written to the embryonic stem cells and often questioned in the iPS. But now it was finally managed to fix a genetic defect in living animals and at the same time to preserve the pluripotent properties of iPS, Dr. Cantz.

Ethical concerns with embryonic stem cells
Overall, stem cell research is highly controversial for a variety of reasons. In the case of embryonic stem cells, the ethical aspects in particular are often a cause for criticism. The extraction of cells requires the destruction of early human embryos. In addition, the question of possible breeding of embryos in the laboratory (cloning) for the production of stem cells, which is often described as a desirable option by embryonic stem cell research advocates, also stands in the background of the conflict. At the same time, opponents and supporters of stem cell research in Germany are also arguing over when an embryo as a human life falls under the protection of Art. 1 of the Basic Law („Human dignity is inviolable.“). For iPS, however, such discussions about possible ethical concerns are of secondary importance.

Controversy over genetic changes in pluripotent stem cells
However, over the course of this year, controversy over possible health effects from pluripotent stem cells (embryonic and induced) has worsened, after US scientists from the University of California, the San Diego School of Medicine and the Scripps Research Institute experienced severe genetic changes in pluripotent stem cell lines have proven. While it is not fully understood what effect these genome aberrations may have on health, the results of US researchers have generally been considered a major setback for stem cell research. The stem cell researcher Prof. Hans Schöler of the Max Planck Institute in Münster was part of the current study „PLoS Biology“-The publication also endeavors to take into account the critical discussions of recent months and stressed: „The cells are as stable as embryonic stem cells and are suitable for combined cell and gene therapy.“ However, the fact that the artificially derived embryonic stem cells could also be unstable is not considered in the current article. (Fp)

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fatty liver
With stem cells for strokes?
More and more people are suffering from liver cancer
Blood disease: gene therapy with side effects

Picture: Hartmut910