Chrissa Kioussi’s group at Oregon State University has made exciting advances in further unraveling the scientific mysteries of stem cells. In work detailed in Scientific Reports, this group found that muscle-specific stem cells actually have the ability to make multiple different cell types.

Pumping up our knowledge about muscle stem cells

Initially, this group was interested in understanding how gene expression changes during embryonic development of skeletal muscle. To understand this process, they labeled muscle stem cells with a kind of fluorescent dye, called GFP, which allowed them to isolate these cells at different stages of development.  Once isolated, they determined what genes were being expressed by RNA sequencing. Surprisingly, they found that in addition to genes involved in muscle formation, they also identified activation of genes involved in the blood, nervous, immune and skeletal systems.

This work is particularly exciting, because it suggests the existence of stem cell “pockets,” or stem cells that are capable of not only making a specific cell type, but an entire organ system.

In a press release, Dr. Kioussi said:

Chrissa Kioussi, PhD

“That cell populations can give rise to so many different cell types, we can use it at the development stage and allow it to become something else over time… We can identify these cells and be able to generate not one but four different organs from them — this is a prelude to making body parts in a lab.” 

This study is particularly exciting because it gives more credence to the idea that entire limbs can be reconstructed from a small group of stem cells. Such advances could have enormous meaning for individuals who have lost body parts due to amputation or disease.