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January 2004 Newsletter
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Stem cells migrate from bone to brain
Good Morning!!
The study referred to in the article below indicates that “cells from an adult's bone marrow
would be as suitable as the more controversial stem cells harvested from embryos”.
This is wonderful news indeed! Please read on…
Gabriella
Stem cells migrate from bone to brain
20 January 03
NewScientist.com news service
Autopsies on four dead women have shown for the first time that stem cells in bone marrow can
develop into brain cells, not just blood and bone cells as previously thought.
The discovery suggests new approaches for repairing damaged or diseased brains. Stem cells
themselves could be used, or the signalling chemicals that instruct them to become brain cells,
although these have yet to be identified.
"I think it's very encouraging to know that there are cells in the human bone marrow that have the
capability to reach the brain and become neurons," says Eva Mezey, who led the team that made the
discovery at the US National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland.
The women whose brains were examined by autopsy had all been treated during their lives with bone
marrow transplants from men. This meant that any cells the NINDS team found in the brain containing
the male Y chromosome must have come from the donated bone marrow.
The researchers found such cells and not just in isolation, but in clumps. This suggests the bone
marrow stem cells multiplied after reaching the brain.
Come here!
Mezey's hunch is that the raw stem cells circulate all the time, until they are summoned to sites of
injury. Once there, they are fashioned into tissue that heals the damage.
"There's something that recruits these cells," says Mezey. "There's some factor that says: 'Come in
here, we need you'. Then, they receive further orders as to what type of cell to become."
"We must now find out what these signals are," she says. Doctors could potentially accelerate healing
by injecting extra signalling molecules into damaged tissue.
Look and learn
Mezey's proposed strategy for finding the important signals would begin by identifying all the
receptors on the surfaces of stem cells. This would reveal which signalling substances the cells are
equipped to receive. The next step would be to expose stem cells to each substance in turn, and
observe the type of cell they develop into.
The NINDS team had already shown that bone marrow cells turn into brain cells in rodents. The new
work now shows the same happens in humans.
The findings corroborate experiments by Catherine Verfaillie of the University of Minnesota. These
showed that special cells with stem-cell like properties, called "multipotent adult progenitor cells",
could be isolated from the bone marrow of mice and humans. In mice, Verfaillie showed they turned
into virtually any type of tissue.
Verfaillie's discovery was reported by New Scientist in January 2002 and raised hopes that, for
medical purposes, cells from an adult's bone marrow would be as suitable as the more controversial
stem cells harvested from embryos.
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI:
/10.1073/pnas.0336479100)
Andy Coghlan
**************************************
Dr. Gabriella Kortsch (Ph.D., CHT)
www.advancedpersonaltherapy.com
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