June 8, 2003 — Canadian researchers say they have uncovered a new type of adult stem cell that, one day, may be used to generate blood cells to help boost wrecked immune systems.
Stem cells are immature, unprogrammed cells that have the potential to develop into specialised cells.
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Scientists believe they have a fantastic potential for reversing illnesses such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, diabetes and heart disease, although much still has to be discovered as to how these cells are able to differentiate.
Another problem is the source of these cells.
The most potent and versatile kind of stem cell comes from embryos at their earliest stages of development, but this raises ethical controversies.
The other source is stem cells taken from adult tissues such as bone marrow, skeletal muscle, liver and brain. They present no ethical problem, but — so far as is known — they have only a limited ability to grow into other cell types.
The new study, published on Sunday in Nature Medicine, shows that even if the versatility problem in adult stem cells remains unresolved, this source can still yield many exciting and unexpected treasures.
The University of Toronto authors say they have uncovered a new class of stem cells in bone marrow, where blood cells — a vast family that includes oxygen-carrying red cells and white cells that are the heavy artillery in the immune system — are produced.
The new type, called R-RSCs, swiftly grew into myeloid cells, which are the parents of immune cells called granulocytes, and also differentiated into red blood cells called erythroid cells.
R-RSCs were uncovered thanks to a new technique that shows promise for the tricky business of identifying stem cells.
Blood cells from a human umbilical cord were injected into the bone marrow of mice, giving rise to R-RSCs with the human genetic signature.
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