endothelial cells

Endothelial cell treatment reverses lung damage in mice with emphysema

/ Yimy Villa / 1 Comment

Emphysema is a condition that causes damage to the alveoli, the air sacs in your lungs. The walls of the damaged air sacs become stretched out and cause your lungs to get bigger. This makes it harder to move your air in and out. It is the most common form of the condition known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and is typically triggered by long-term cigarette smoking. Estimates show that approximately 200 million people around the world are affected. Unfortunately, there is no cure for this disease of the lungs.

A study conducted by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian found that specialized endothelial cells may hold the key to treating emphysema. Endothelial cells line the inner surface of blood vessels and have been shown to play an important role in protecting and restoring the health of key organs. Specifically, lung endothelial cells line the inner surface of the lung’s network of blood vessels.

As part of their research, the team studied lung tissue from human emphysema patients while also looking at lung issue from mice with an induced form of the disease. What they found that was that changes in the activity of certain genes in lung endothelial cells and the loss of those cells was associated with decreased lung function and other indicators of emphysema progression.

The researchers then infused mice with induced emphysema with healthy lung endothelial cells from genetically identical mice and the results were astounding. The team showed that they could prevent and/or reverse most of the lung damage that was seen in untreated mice. By contrast, injecting other cell types, including endothelial cells from other tissues, did not have the same effect.

The team believes that this treatment effect might have to do with differences in the molecules secreted by diseased versus healthy lung endothelial cells. To back up this claim, they found that lung endothelial cells in both humans and mice with emphysema showed sharp increases in production of LRG1, a molecule that promotes new blood vessel growth that has been linked to retinal and kidney diseases as well as some cancers. Additionally, when the researchers deleted the gene for LRG1 from lung endothelial cells in mice, the lungs were largely protected from the lung damage of induced emphysema, much as they had been by the endothelial cell therapy.

In a news release from Cornell, Dr. Alexandra Racanelli, a co-first author on this study and an instructor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a pulmonologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, had this to say about the results.

“Taken together, our data strongly suggest the critical role of endothelial cell function in mediating the pathogenesis of COPD/emphysema. Targeting endothelial cell biology by administering healthy lung endothelial cells and/or inhibiting the LRG1 pathway may therefore represent strategies of immense potential for the treatment of patients with advanced COPD or emphysema.”

The full study was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Stories of the week – preterm birth and mice with a human immune system

/ Yimy Villa / 2 Comments

While we are here at ISSCR 2019 hearing various scientists talk about their work, we realize that there are various breakthroughs in stem cell research in a wide variety of different fields going on every day. It is wonderful to see how scientists are hard at work in developing the latest science and pushing innovation. Here are two remarkable stories you may have missed this week.

Scientists developing way to help premature babies breathe easier

Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center are looking at ways to stimulate lung development in premature infants who suffer from a rare condition called Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD), which can cause lifelong breathing problems and even death. Using a mouse model of BPD, extensive analysis, and testing, the scientists were able to create a proposal to develop a stem cell therapy based on what are called c-KIT endothelial progenitor cells.

Premature babies, unable to breathe on their own, rely on machines to help them breathe. Unfortunately, these machines can interfere with lung development as well. The cells proposed in the stem cell therapy are common in the lungs of infants still in the womb and help in the formation of capillaries and air sacs in the lungs called alveoli.

In a press release, Dr. Vlad Kalinichenko, lead investigator for this work, was quoted as saying,

“The cells are highly sensitive to injury by high oxygen concentrations, so lung development in premature babies on mechanical oxygen assistance is impeded. Our findings suggest using c-KIT-positive endothelial cells from donors, or generating them with pluripotent stem cells, might be a way to treat BPD or other pediatric lung disorders associated with loss of alveoli and pulmonary microvasculature.”

The full results were published in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Mice with a human immune system help research into cancer and infections

Speaking of a mouse model, researchers from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital have succeeded in using mice with a transplanted human immune system to study functions in the immune system which are otherwise particularly difficult to study. This work could open the possibilities towards looking further into disease areas such as cancer, HIV, and autoimmune diseases.

Before potential treatments can be tested in humans, there needs to be extensive animal testing and data generated. However, when the disease relate’s to the human immune system, it can be particularly challenging to evaluate this in mice. The research team succeeded in transplanting human stem cells into mice whose own immune system is disabled, and then triggered a type of reaction in the immune system which normally reacts to meeting a range of viruses and bacteria.

In a press release, Dr. Anna Halling Folkmar, one of the researchers behind the study, says that,

“The humanised mice are an important tool in understanding how human immune cells behave during diseases and how they react to different medical treatments.”

The full results were published in Immunology.

Support cells have different roles in blood stem cell maintenance before and after stress

/ Pallavi Penumetcha / Leave a comment

How-Stem-Cells-Act-When-Stressed-Versus-When-At-Rest

Expression of pleiotrophin (green) in bone marrow blood vessels (red) and stromal cells (white) in normal mice (left), and in mice 24 hours after irradiation (right). UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center/Cell Stem Cell

A new study published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, reveals how different types of cells in the bone marrow are responsible for supporting blood stem cell maintenance before and after injury.

It was already well known in the field that two different cell types, namely endothelial cells (which line blood vessels) and stromal cells (which make up connective tissue, or tissue that provides structural support for any organ), are responsible for maintaining the population of blood stem cells in the bone marrow. However, how these cells and the molecules they secrete impact blood stem cell development and maintenance is not well understood.

Hematopoietic stem cells are responsible for generating the multiple different types of cells found in blood, from our oxygen carrying red blood cells to the many different types of white blood cells that make up our immune system.

Dr. John Chute’s group at UCLA had previously discovered that a molecule called pleiotrophin, or PTN, is important for promoting self-renewal of the blood stem cell population. They did not, however, understand which cells secrete this molecule and when.

To answer this question, the scientists developed mouse models that did not produce PTN in different types of bone marrow cells, such as endothelial cells and stromal cells. Surprisingly, they saw that the inability of stromal cells to produce PTN decreased the blood stem cell population, but deletion of PTN in endothelial cells did not affect the blood stem cell niche.

Even more interestingly, the researchers found that in animals that were subjected to an environmental stressor, in this case, radiation, the result was reversed: endothelial cell PTN was necessary for blood stem cell renewal, whereas stromal cell PTN was not. While an important part of the knowledge base for blood stem cell biology, the reason for this switch in PTN secretion at times of homeostasis and disease is still unknown.

As Dr. Chute states in a press release, this result could have important implications for cancer treatments such as radiation:

“It may be possible to administer modified, recombinant versions of pleiotrophin to patients to accelerate blood cell regeneration. This strategy also may apply to patients undergoing bone marrow transplants.”

Another important consideration to take away from this work is that animal models developed in the laboratory should take into account the possibility that blood stem cell maintenance and regeneration is distinctly controlled under healthy and disease state. In other words, cellular function in one state is not always indicative of its role in another state.

This work was partially funded by a CIRM Leadership Award.

 

 

Confusing cancer to kill it

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

Kipps

Thomas Kipps, MD, PhD: Photo courtesy UC San Diego

Confusion is not a state of mind that we usually seek out. Being bewildered is bad enough when it happens naturally, so why would anyone actively pursue it? But now some researchers are doing just that, using confusion to not just block a deadly blood cancer, but to kill it.

Today the CIRM Board approved an investment of $18.29 million to Dr. Thomas Kipps and his team at UC San Diego to use a one-two combination approach that we hope will kill Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL).

This approach combines two therapies, cirmtuzumab (a monoclonal antibody developed with CIRM funding, hence the name) and Ibrutinib, a drug that has already been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for patients with CLL.

As Dr. Maria Millan, our interim President and CEO, said in a news release, the need for a new treatment is great.

“Every year around 20,000 Americans are diagnosed with CLL. For those who have run out of treatment options, the only alternative is a bone marrow transplant. Since CLL afflicts individuals in their 70’s who often have additional medical problems, bone marrow transplantation carries a higher risk of life threatening complications. The combination approach of  cirmtuzumab and Ibrutinib seeks to offer a less invasive and more effective alternative for these patients.”

Ibrutinib blocks signaling pathways that leukemia cells need to survive. Disrupting these pathways confuses the leukemia cell, leading to its death. But even with this approach there are cancer stem cells that are able to evade Ibrutinib. These lie dormant during the therapy but come to life later, creating more leukemia cells and causing the cancer to spread and the patient to relapse. That’s where cirmtuzumab comes in. It works by blocking a protein on the surface of the cancer stem cells that the cancer needs to spread.

It’s hoped this one-two punch combination will kill all the cancer cells, increasing the number of patients who go into complete remission and improve their long-term cancer control.

In an interview with OncLive, a website focused on cancer professionals, Tom Kipps said Ibrutinib has another advantage for patients:

“The patients are responding well to treatment. It doesn’t seem like you have to worry about stopping therapy, because you’re not accumulating a lot of toxicity as you would with chemotherapy. If you administered chemotherapy on and on for months and months and years and years, chances are the patient wouldn’t tolerate that very well.”

The CIRM Board also approved $5 million for Angiocrine Bioscience Inc. to carry out a Phase 1 clinical trial testing a new way of using cord blood to help people battling deadly blood disorders.

The standard approach for this kind of problem is a bone marrow transplant from a matched donor, usually a family member. But many patients don’t have a potential donor and so they often have to rely on a cord blood transplant as an alternative, to help rebuild and repair their blood and immune systems. However, too often a single cord blood donation does not have enough cells to treat an adult patient.

Angiocrine has developed a product that could help get around that problem. AB-110 is made up of cord blood-derived hematopoietic stem cells (these give rise to all the other types of blood cell) and genetically engineered endothelial cells – the kind of cell that lines the insides of blood vessels.

This combination enables the researchers to take cord blood cells and greatly expand them in number. Expanding the number of cells could also expand the number of patients who could get these potentially life-saving cord blood transplants.

These two new projects now bring the number of clinical trials funded by CIRM to 35. You can read about the other 33 here.

 

 

 

Stem cell-derived blood-brain barrier gives more complete picture of Huntington’s disease

/ Todd Dubnicoff / Leave a comment

Like a sophisticated security fence, our bodies have evolved a barrier that protects the brain from potentially harmful substances in the blood but still allows the entry of essential molecules like blood sugar and oxygen. Just like in other parts of the body, the blood vessels and capillaries in the brain are lined with endothelial cells. But in the brain, these cells form extremely tight connections with each other making it nearly impossible for most things to passively squeeze through the blood vessel wall and into the brain fluid.

BloodBrainBarrier

Compared to blood vessels in other parts of the body, brain blood vessels form a much tighter seal to protect the brain.
Image source: Dana and Chris Reeve Foundation

Recent studies have shown defects in the brain-blood barrier are associated with neurodegenerative disorders like Huntington’s disease and as a result becomes leakier. Although the debilitating symptoms of Huntington’s disease – which include involuntary movements, severe mood swings and difficulty swallowing – are primarily due to the gradual death of specific nerve cells, this breakdown in the blood-brain barrier most likely contributes to the deterioration of the Huntington’s brain.

What hasn’t been clear is if mutations in Huntingtin, the gene that is linked to Huntington’s disease, directly impact the specialized endothelial cells within the blood-brain barrier or if these specialized cells are just innocent bystanders of the destruction that occurs as Huntington’s progresses. It’s an important question to answer. If the mutations in Huntingtin directly affect the blood-brain barrier then it could provide a bigger picture of how this incurable, fatal disease works. More importantly, it may provide new avenues for therapy development.

A UC Irvine research team got to the bottom of this question with the help of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from the skin cells of individuals with Huntington’s disease. Their CIRM-funded study was published this week in Cell Reports.

In a first for a neurodegenerative disease, the researchers coaxed the Huntington’s disease iPSCs in a lab dish to become brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs), the specialized cells responsible for forming the blood-brain barrier. The researchers found that the Huntington’s BMECs themselves were indeed dysfunctional. Compared to BMECs derived from unaffected individuals, the Huntington’s BMECs weren’t as good at making new blood vessels, and the vessels they did make were leakier. So the Huntingtin mutation in these BMECs appears to be directly responsible for the faulty blood-brain barrier.

The team dug deeper into this new insight by looking for possible differences in gene activity between the healthy and Huntington’s BMECs. They found that the Wnt group of genes, which plays an important role in the development of the blood-brain barrier, are over active in the Huntington’s BMECs. This altered Wnt activity can explain the leaky defects. In fact, the use of a drug inhibitor of Wnt fixed the defects. Dr. Leslie Thompson, the team lead, described the significance of this finding in a press release:

“Now we know there are internal problems with blood vessels in the brain. This discovery can be used for possible future treatments to seal the leaky blood vessels themselves and to evaluate drug delivery to patients with HD.”

151117_lesliethompson_05_sz-1080x720

Study leader, Leslie Thompson. Steve Zylius / UCI

A companion Cell Stem Cell report, also published this week, used the same iPSC-derived blood-brain barrier system. In that study, researchers at Cedars-Sinai pinpointed BMEC defects as the underlying cause of Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome, another neurologic condition that causes mental deficits and movement problems. Together these results really drive home the importance of studying the blood-brain barrier function in neurodegenerative disease.

Dr. Ryan Lim, the first author on the UC Irvine study, also points to a larger perspective on the implications of this work:

“These studies together demonstrate the incredible power of iPSCs to help us more fully understand human disease and identify the underlying causes of cellular processes that are altered.”

Regenerating damaged muscle after a heart attack

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

Cardio cells image

Images of clusters of heart muscle cells (in red and green) derived from human embryonic stem cells 40 days after transplantation. Courtesy UCLA

Every year more than 735,000 Americans have a heart attack. Many of those who survive often have lasting damage to their heart muscle and are at increased risk for future attacks and heart failure. Now CIRM-funded researchers at UCLA have identified a way that could help regenerate heart muscle after a heart attack, potentially not only saving lives but also increasing the quality of life.

The researchers used human embryonic stem cells to create a kind of cell, called a cardiac mesoderm cell, which has the ability to turn into cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts, smooth muscle, and endothelial cells. All these types of cells play an important role in helping repair a damaged heart.

As those embryonic cells were in the process of changing into cardiac mesoderms, the team was able to identify two key markers on the cell surface. The markers, called CD13 and ROR2 – which makes them sound like extras in the latest Star Wars movie – pinpointed the cells that were likely to be the most efficient at changing into the kind of cells needed to repair damaged heart tissue.

The researchers then transplanted those cells into an animal model and found that not only did many of the cells survive but they also produced the cells needed to regenerate heart muscle and vessels.

Big step forward

The research was published in the journal Stem Cell Reports. Dr. Reza Ardehali, the senior author of the CIRM-funded study, says this is a big step forward in the use of embryonic stem cells to help treat heart attacks:

“In a major heart attack, a person loses an estimated 1 billion heart cells, which results in permanent scar tissue in the heart muscle. Our findings seek to unlock some of the mysteries of heart regeneration in order to move the possibility of cardiovascular cell therapies forward. We have now found a way to identify the right type of stem cells that create heart cells that successfully engraft when transplanted and generate muscle tissue in the heart, which means we’re one step closer to developing cell-based therapies for people living with heart disease.”

More good news

But wait, as they say in cheesy TV infomercials, there’s more. Ardehali and his team not only found the markers to help them identify the right kinds of cell to use in regenerating damaged heart muscle, they also found a way to track the transplanted cells so they could make sure they were going where they wanted them to, and doing what they needed them to.

In a study published in Stem Cells Translational Medicine,  Ardehali and his team used special particles that can be tracked using MRI. They used those particles to label the cardiac mesoderm cells. Once transplanted into the animal model the team was able to follow the cells for up to 40 days.

Ardehali says knowing how to identify the best cells to repair a damaged heart, and then being able to track them over a long period, gives us valuable tools to use as we work to develop better, more effective treatments for people who have had a heart attack.

CIRM is already funding a Phase 2 clinical trial, run by a company called Capricor, using stem cells to treat heart attack patients.