Scientists Discover Super-potent Blood Stem Cells in Human Embryos

When hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from early human embryos are just starting to form, they are more robust at expanding than those from the cord blood, said Andrejs Ivanovs, Alexander Medvinsky (a.medvinsky@ed.ac.uk), and colleagues from the University of Edinburgh. The findings of the study are published in Stem Cell Reports.

Researchers compared HSCs from developing human embryos and umbilical cord blood to multiply to generate more HSCs.

‘Stem cells that form the blood and immune system, so-called hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), have critical applications in treating blood cancers and other diseases of the immune system. ’

After the transplantation into mice, the embryonic stem cells generated approximately 200 - 500 times more new HSCs compared to cord blood HSCs.

The new findings could lead to advances in expanding HSCs from the cord blood and adult bone marrow, ultimately expanding the available blood supply.

A stem cell is a unique cell that can give rise to any specific specialized cell, such as a blood cell depending on the area of the body. Stem cells derived from the embryo or the bone marrow have a huge potential for treating a number of degenerative diseases.

Source: Medindia