Stem Cell Research points to treatment breakthroughs

Dr. Catherine Berry and Professor Matthew Dalby from the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology, have been able to create and control bundles of bone marrow stem cells that act as the stem cells do in the body, including the capability of healing injuries in lab-grown bone and cartilage models.

Mesenchymal stem cells, produced naturally in the body, can differentiate into other different types of cells, such as bone, cartilage or fat cells. They have enormous potential for use in medicine but are difficult to properly culture in the laboratory, because when stored they spontaneously and randomly differentiate.

In the body, however, they wait in the bone marrow until a regenerative demand is placed on them to change into mature cell types to repair the bone, cartilage, ligament or tendon around them.

By using 3D spheroid cultures rather than standard 2D cell growth techniques, the researchers have shown that they can grow stem cells and prevent them from differentiating over a prolonged period.

Dr Catherine Berry, of the University’s Institute of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology, said: “This is a really exciting discovery, which uses a fairly simple and affordable method to grow and maintain stem cells ready to heal tissues.

“Although this paper is on our research into using these stem cells with bone and cartilage, we’re already starting to work with partners at the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre and the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre to look at the potential to use this technique to combat leukaemia and breast cancer.

‘A Quiescent, Regeneration-Responsive Tissue Engineered Mesenchymal Stem Cell Bone Marrow Niche Model via Magnetic Levitation’, is published in ACS Nano http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.6b02841

The research was funded by RCUK (Research Councils UK), BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) and EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Science).