Maria Cohut published an article that was fact checked by Isabel Godfrey on coaxing stem cells to form new bone tissue. There is new research that identifies a possible way to manipulate some stem cells to generate new bone tissue, which could vastly improve the outcome for people with skeletal injuries or those who have conditions such as osteoporosis.
The undifferentiated stem cells have the potential to specialize and undertake any function. Research has focused much on how best to use the stem cells for therapeutic purposes. The interest is especially in how to manipulate them in order to create new tissue that can successfully replace the damaged sets of cells or the ones no longer functional. There is a new study from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, where Dr. Aaron James and his team have looked into the mechanisms that allow certain types of stem cell, show as perivascular stem cells, to form new bone tissue. The stem cells turn into either fat tissue or bone tissue, and it is unclear what determines their fate.
The bones have a limited pool of stem cells to draw from in creating new bone, so if these cells could get coaxed toward a bone cell fate and away from fat, that would be a great advancement in the ability to promote bone health and healing. The research was conducted in a rat model and in human cell cultures of which the findings are reported in the journal Scientific Reports.
They believe a protein called WISP-1 is likely driving the fate of perivascular stem cells by telling them whether to form into fat or bone tissue. They are seeking to prove WISP-1’s role in deterring the cell fat by genetically modifying a set of human stem cells to stop them from producing this protein. It was confirmed the protein played an important role. Cells without WISP-1 had a 50-200% higher level of activity than they did in the cells continuing to produce WISP-1. They then modified stem cells to increase WISP-1 production and found that 3 of the genes stimulating bone tissue growth became twice as active compared with those in stem cells with normal levels of the signaling protein.
Then they used a rat model to determine if WISP-1 could boost bone healing in spinal fusion. This requires a massive amount of new bone cells, so if they could direct bone cell creation at the site of the fusion, it could help patients to recover more quickly and also to reduce the risk of complications. After infecting human stem cells active with WISP-1 into rats, Dr. James and his team found after 4 weeks the animals still displayed high levels of WISP-1 in their spinal tissue and new bone tissue was already forming in the right places allowing the vertebrae to become welded.
The team intends to find out if reducing WISP-1 levels in stem cells could lead them to form fat tissue, which could help to promote faster wound healing.
Dr Fredda Branyon