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Posted on 04/21/2006 10:26:15 PM PDT by Coleus
LONDON, March 29 - The day may be coming when stem cells help arthritis patients repair their own joints. Cultured adult human periosteal stem cells demonstrate mesenchymal multipotency, suggesting that they may be used to repair tissue and joint damage associated with arthritis, researchers here reported.
Upon enzymatic release and culture expansion, cells harvested from the periosteum can "give rise to cartilage and bone," wrote Cosimo De Bari, M.D., Ph.D. and colleagues at King's College London in the April issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.
Moreover, the cells differentiated into chondrocyte, osteoblast, adipocyte and myocyte lineages regardless of donor age. Although more studies are needed to confirm these observations, Dr. De Bari said that since harvesting periosteal cells is a relatively easy procedure, the periosteum is a good source of mesenchymal stem cells.
The cells were harvested from the proximal tibia of 12 human donors ages 24 to 83. Culture-expanded cells demonstrated mesenchymal stem cells markers including long telomeres. In-vivo multipotency was tested in a series of animal models. The cell potential to regenerate muscle and grow bone was tested in mice, while their ability to grow cartilage was tested in goats.
"Under specific conditions, both parental and single-cell derived clonal cell populations differentiated into the chondrocyte, osteoblast, adipocyte, and skeletal myocyte lineages in vitro and in vivo," the authors wrote. The authors pointed out that this study provides proof of concept that expanded periosteal cells can form cartilage in vivo, but they also emphasized this is only a first step.
Long-term animal studies are needed to "evaluate the potential use of [periosteal mesenchymal stem cells] in joint resurfacing, their phenotype behavior within the articular cartilage microenvironment, and in particular, whether the cartilage contributed by the implanted periosteal cells remains stable or is a transient tissue that is destined to be replaced by bone."
In the mouse model of bone regeneration the tissue retrieved was "at least partly of human origin," but the authors noted that they cannot "exclude a contribution of mouse host cells to bone formation."
This is the first study to report that periosteum cells can differentiate "into skeletal muscle in vivo and are multipotent [mesenchymal stem cells] at the single-cell level," they wrote. But it is unclear whether the multipotency is the result of in vitro manipulation or "an intrinsic property of reserve quiescent cells that reside within the adult periosteum and undergo activation in response to signals from surrounding tissue/structures."
Wow, this is almost a month old. Why, how strange that this was accidently overlooked by the mainstream big media!
Oh OF COURSE, silly me! It's only important and newsworthy if we must kill babies for our medical breakthroughs!
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omg! *bump* I dream of the day!
Now if they can figure out a way to regenerate the sheath surrounding the nerves to my left leg, I'll be a scratch golfer again!
The drive by MSM is 98% liberal and you think they will report the real news? And you are so right--this is but one example of the monopoly they hold on information.
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