Here are some stem cell stories that caught our eye this past week. Some are groundbreaking science, others are of personal interest to us, and still others are just fun.

Scientists finally grow blood stem cells in the lab!

Two exciting stem cell studies broke through the politics-dominated headlines this week. Both studies, published in the journal Nature, demonstrated that human hematopoietic or blood stem cells can be grown in the lab.

This news is a big deal because scientists have yet to make bonafide blood stem cells from pluripotent stem cells or other human cells. These stem cells not only create all the cells in our blood and immune systems, but also can be used to develop therapies for patients with blood cancers and genetic blood disorders.

But to do these experiments, you need a substantial source of blood stem cells – something that has eluded scientists for decades. That’s where these two studies come to the rescue. One study was spearheaded by George Daley at the Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts and the other was led by Shahin Rafii at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

George Daley and his team developed a strategy that matured human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) into blood-forming stem and progenitor cells. It’s a two-step process that first uses a cocktail of chemicals to make hemogenic endothelium, the embryonic tissue that generates blood stem cells. The second step involved treating these intermediate cells with a combination of seven transcription factors that directed them towards a blood stem cell fate.

These modified human blood stem cells were then transplanted into mice where they developed into blood stem cells that produced blood and immune cells. First author on the study, Ryohichi Sugimura, explained the applications that their technology could be used for in a Boston Children’s Hospital news release,

“This step opens up an opportunity to take cells from patients with genetic blood disorders, use gene editing to correct their genetic defect and make functional blood cells. This also gives us the potential to have a limitless supply of blood stem cells and blood by taking cells from universal donors. This could potentially augment the blood supply for patients who need transfusions.”

The second study by Shahin Rafii and his team at Cornell used a different strategy to generate blood-forming stem cells. Instead of genetically manipulating iPS cells, they selected a more mature cell type to directly reprogram into blood stem cells. Using four transcription factors, they successfully reprogrammed mouse endothelial cells, which line the insides of blood vessels, into blood-forming stem cells that repopulated the blood and immune systems of irradiated mice.

Raffii believe his method is simpler and more efficient than Daley’s. In coverage by Nature News, he commented,

“Using the most efficient method to generate stem cells matters because every time a gene is added to a batch of cells, a large portion of the batch fails to incorporate it and must be thrown out. There is also a risk that some cells will mutate after they are modified in the lab, and could form tumors if they are implanted into people.”

To play devil’s advocate, Daley’s technique might appeal more to some because the starting source of iPS cells is much easier to obtain and culture in the lab than endothelial cells that have to be extracted from the blood vessels of animals or people. Furthermore, Daley argued that his team’s method could “be made more efficient, and [is] less likely to spur tumor growth and other abnormalities in modified cells.”

The Nature News article compares the achievements of both studies and concluded,

“Time will determine which approach succeeds. But the latest advances have buoyed the spirits of researchers who have been frustrated by their inability to generate blood stem cells from iPS cells.”

 

Humans and puffer fish have the same tooth-making stem cells.

Here’s a fun fact for your next blind date: humans and puffer fish share the same genes that are responsible for making teeth. Scientists from the University of Sheffield in England discovered that the stem cells that make teeth in puffer fish are the same stem cells that make the pearly whites in humans. Their work was published in the journal PNAS earlier this week.

But if you look at this puffer fish, you’ll see a dramatic difference between its smile and ours – their teeth look more like a beak. Research has shown that the tooth-forming stem cells in puffer fish produce tooth plates that form a beak-like structure, which helps them crush and consume their prey.

So why is this shared evolution between humans and puffer fish important when our teeth look and function so differently? The scientists behind this research believe that studying the pufferfish could unearth answers about tooth loss in humans. The lead author on the study, Dr. Gareth Fraser, concluded in coverage by Phys.org,

“Our study questioned how pufferfish make a beak and now we’ve discovered the stem cells responsible and the genes that govern this process of continuous regeneration. These are also involved in general vertebrate tooth regeneration, including in humans. The fact that all vertebrates regenerate their teeth in the same way with a set of conserved stem cells means that we can use these studies in more obscure fishes to provide clues to how we can address questions of tooth loss in humans.”