Arthritis Treatment: What New Scientific Progress Is Being Made With Stem Cells?

Deciphering the advances made in stem cell (SC) science can be a daunting task. Since there is so much interest and so much debate regarding the ethics of embryonic SC research as well as scientific techniques used to culture SCs, there has been intense competition among researchers to trumpet their exploits.

In fact, the interplay among the various scientific factions plays out like a soap opera.

Nonetheless some of the discoveries warrant attention. While much of this is basic research, the implications for applications to medical conditions such as arthritis treatment are obvious.

First, a study entitled, "Induced Pluripotent Cell Lines Derived From Human Somatic Cells" (Yu J, Vodyanik MA, Smuga-Otto K, et al) from Science.

These researchers demonstrated that taking a cell nucleus and implanting it in a mammalian egg using viruses can reprogram an adult tissue cell to regress to an earlier state. This is called an induced pluripotential SC and has all the properties an embryonic SC might. The point the authors make is that this type of cell "should be useful in the production of new disease models and in drug development, as well as for applications in transplantation medicine."

The cells used here were fibroblasts, a vague type of cell found in many areas of the body.

As if listening and digesting this information, other researchers also published a paper in Science a bit later (Okita K, Nakagawal M, Henjong H, et al. Generation of Mouse Induced Pluripotential Stem Cells Without Viral Vectors).

And you guessed it. They reported the ability to produce induced pluripotential SCs without using viral vectors. They used mouse embryonic cells. The benefit here is that this technique avoids the possibility of cancer development.

And another interesting study, entitled, "SHED: Stem Cells From Human Exfoliated Deciduous Teeth" (Miura M, Gronthos S, Zhao M, et al) demonstrated that multipotent SCs could be obtained from baby teeth. That cuts the tooth fairy out of the equation. The authors point out,
"naturally exfoliated human organ contains a population of SCs that are completely different from previously identified SCs. SHED are not only derived from a very accessible tissue resource but are also capable of providing enough cells for potential clinical application. Thus, exfoliated teeth may be an unexpected unique resource for SC therapies including autologous SC transplantation and tissue engineering. "

The disadvantage here is that the SCs generated are multipotential, meaning their ability to differentiate is not as great as the pluripotential models.

And finally, this gem entitled, "Generation of Pluripotential Stem Cells From Adult Mouse Liver and Stomach Cells" (Aoi T, Yae K, Nakagawa M, et al).

The researchers here used a technique to make pluripotential SCs from adult mouse liver and stomach cells. And these cells had all the capabilities of embryonic SCs.

Bottom line: Hot competition in this arena! Fortunately, the easy availability of autologous SCs helps us out right now as far as arthritis treatment is concerned.