What Are Pluripotent Stem Cells?

Pluripotent stem cells (Stem Cells) are a class of pluripotent cells with self-renewal and self-replication capabilities. Under certain conditions, it can differentiate into a variety of APSC pluripotent cells. Pluripotent stem cells (Ps) have the potential to differentiate into a variety of cellular tissues, but they have lost the ability to develop into complete individuals and their development potential is limited to a certain extent.

Pluripotent stem cells

Pluripotent stem cells (Stem Cells) are a class of

Multipotent

Multipotent

Xiao Lei is a researcher at the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He and colleagues such as Wu Zhao, Chen Junjun and others successfully used inducible (Tet-on / off system)

IPS (Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells)

iPS technology is

British magazine Nature and American Cell?

Motor nerve differentiated from pluripotent stem cells

There are many reasons why pluripotent stem cells are important for the advancement of science and human health. At its most basic, pluripotent stem cells can help us understand complex events in human development. The primary goal of this work is to identify the determinants of participation that lead to cell specialization. Although we know that genes are turned on and off at the core of the process, we know very little about these "determining" genes and what makes them turn on or off. The most serious medical problems in humans, such as cancer and birth defects, are caused by abnormal cell specialization and cell differentiation. If we can better understand the differentiation and development of normal cells, we can better understand the basic errors and the causes of these lethal diseases. Human pluripotent stem cell research can also dramatically change the methods used to develop drugs and conduct safety experiments. For example, new drugs / therapeutics can first be tested on human cell lines, such as cancer cell lines. Pluripotent stem cells make more types of cell experiments possible. This will not replace experiments on whole animals and humans, but it will make the drug development process more efficient. Only when the cell line experiments show that the drug is safe and have good results, are they eligible for further experiments in animals and humans in the laboratory. Perhaps the most profound potential use of human pluripotent stem cells is to produce cells and tissues, which can be used in so-called "cell therapy". Many diseases and dysfunctions are often caused by cell dysfunction or tissue destruction. Today, some donated organs and tissues are often used to replace sick or damaged tissues. Unfortunately, the number of patients afflicted with these diseases far exceeds the number of organs available for transplantation. Pluripotent stem cells can develop into specialized cells upon stimulation, making it possible to renew replacement cells and tissue sources, which can be used to treat countless diseases, physical conditions and disabilities, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease (dementia ), Spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Shanghai Academy of Biosciences and others reveal the application of pluripotent stem cells in Alzheimer's disease cell replacement therapy

On October 15th, the international academic journal Stem Cell Reports published the research paper of the research group Jing Naihe of the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences: Embryonic stem cell-derived basal forebrain cholinergic neurons ameliorate the cognitive Symptoms associated with Alzheimer's disease in mouse models. This paper successfully induced mouse and human embryonic stem cells to differentiate into mature functional basal forebrain cholinergic neurons (BFCN), and transplanted these stem cell-derived BFCNs into animal models of Alzheimer's disease. In the brain, it can effectively improve the cognitive function of model mice. This study will help explore the feasibility of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons derived from pluripotent stem cells for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease cells and provide alternative treatments for Alzheimer's disease cells based on pluripotent stem cells. Theoretical basis. ^[3]

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a major disease that seriously endangers human health, especially the health and quality of life of the elderly. At present, the treatment of AD mainly depends on drugs to delay the decline of cognitive function, and the effect is very limited. In recent years, the application of pluripotent stem cell-based cell replacement therapy in neurodegenerative diseases has made some progress. However, the application of pluripotent stem cells in AD cell replacement therapy has not been studied. Existing studies have confirmed that dysfunction and loss of BFCN, which is closely related to cognitive activities, is an important cause of cognitive dysfunction in AD patients. Therefore, BFCN may have the potential to improve AD cognitive dysfunction. However, the research on the directional differentiation of pluripotent stem cells into BFCN has just started, and the application and function of stem cell-derived BFCN in AD cell replacement therapy are still unclear. ^[3]

In this study, Yue Wei, Li Yuanyuan, and Zhang Ting from the staff of Jing Naihe's research group at the Institute of Biochemistry and Cells induced differentiation of mouse and human pluripotent stem cells into basal forebrain cholinergic neurons. BFCN), and found that these pluripotent stem cell-derived BFCNs have similar molecular and functional characteristics to BFCNs in the brain. On this basis, they transplanted mouse and human pluripotent stem cell-derived BFCN precursor cells into the basal forebrain of AD model mice, and found that the transplanted cells mainly differentiated into functional acetylcholine in the basal forebrain of AD mice. Acetylcholinergic projection circuits capable of neurons and effective integration into the basal forebrain of AD mice. It was also found that the learning and memory function of AD mice transplanted with exogenous BFCN was significantly improved. This research was done in cooperation with Shu Yousheng's research group at Beijing Normal University and Yu Xiang's research group at the Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai Academy of Biological Sciences.

The research project was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. ^[3]