最新《Science》干细胞新发现

　　

生物通报道，哈佛大学医学院、麻省总医院等处的科学家在干细胞研究发现取得新的进展，相关成果文章Assembly of Functional Ventricular Heart Muscle from Mouse Committed Ventricular Progenitor Cells发表在最新一期的Science杂志上。

 

哺乳动物的心脏是由多种肌肉和非肌肉细胞所组成的，它们来自2组不同的先祖细胞。 对这些先祖细胞的身份以及导致心室发育的途径进行精确的界定对理解心脏是如何发育及再生心血管药物的研发来说都是至关重要的。

 

研究小组在发现了一个可产生心室肌的先祖细胞群。

 

迄今之前，科研人员无法做到的一件事就是如何诱使细胞形成假设能在患病的心脏中行使功能的健康心肌。

 

Ibrahim Domian及其同僚应用一个由红色和绿色荧光标签所组成的系统来标记小鼠胚胎发育中的心脏细胞组。这一系统使得研究人员能够分离出专门产生心肌的先祖细胞，这些细胞接着被用来构建功能性的"会搏动"的心室肌组织。 文章的作者说，这种将组织工程与干细胞生物学相结合的方法现在可能使病人的及疾病特异性的心脏先祖细胞分离出来。

（生物通 小茜）

 

生物通推荐原文摘要

Generation of Functional Ventricular Heart Muscle from Mouse Ventricular Progenitor Cells

Ibrahim J. Domian,1,2,* Murali Chiravuri,1,* Peter van der Meer,1,3,* Adam W. Feinberg,4 Xi Shi,1 Ying Shao,1 Sean M. Wu,1,2 Kevin Kit Parker,2,4,5 Kenneth R. Chien1,2,6,

 

【Abstract】

The mammalian heart is formed from distinct sets of first and second heart field (FHF and SHF, respectively) progenitors. Although multipotent progenitors have previously been shown to give rise to cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle, and endothelial cells, the mechanism governing the generation of large numbers of differentiated progeny remains poorly understood. We have employed a two-colored fluorescent reporter system to isolate FHF and SHF progenitors from developing mouse embryos and embryonic stem cells. Genome-wide profiling of coding and noncoding transcripts revealed distinct molecular signatures of these progenitor populations. We further identify a committed ventricular progenitor cell in the Islet 1 lineage that is capable of limited in vitro expansion, differentiation, and assembly into functional ventricular muscle tissue, representing a combination of tissue engineering and stem cell biology.

 

1 Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charles River Plaza, CPZN 3200, 185 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA 02114–2790, USA.
2 Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
3 Department of Cardiology, University Medical Center Groningen, Hanzeplein 1, 9700 RB Groningen, Netherlands.
4 Disease Biophysics Group, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
5 The Wyss Institue for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
6 Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
* These authors contributed equally to this work.