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Alzheimer's, Dementia & Mental Health
One Brain Cell Can Generate New Ones to Replace
Every Cell in Donor's Brain, Researchers Find
Research find healing
potential normally associated with stem cells
August 17, 2006 - University of Florida researchers
have shown ordinary human brain cells may share the prized qualities of
self-renewal and adaptability normally associated with stem cells. The
findings document for the first time the ability of common human brain
cells to morph into different cell types, a previously unknown
characteristic, and are the result of the research teams long-term
investigations of adult human stem cells and rodent embryonic stem
cells.
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Writing in an upcoming edition of Development,
scientists from UFs McKnight Brain Institute describe how they used
mature human brain cells taken from epilepsy patients to generate new
brain tissue in mice.
Furthermore, they can coax these pedestrian human
cells to produce large amounts of new brain cells in culture, with one
cell theoretically able to begin a cycle of cell division that does not
stop until the cells number about 10 to the 16th power.
We can theoretically take a single brain cell out
of a human being and - with just this one cell - generate enough brain
cells to replace every cell of the donors brain and conceivably those
of 50 million other people, said Dennis Steindler, Ph.D., executive
director of UFs McKnight Brain Institute. This is a completely new
source of human brain cells that can potentially be used to fight
Parkinson's disease, Alzheimers disease, stroke and a host of other
brain disorders. It would probably only take months to get enough
material for a human transplant operation.
Last year, the researchers published details about
how they used stem-like brain cells from rodents to duplicate
neurogenesis - the process of generating new brain cells - in a dish.
The latest findings go further, showing common human brain cells can
generate different cell types in cell cultures. In addition, when
researchers transplanted these human cells into mice, the cells
effectively incorporated in a variety of brain regions.
The human cells were acquired from patients who had
undergone surgical treatment for epilepsy and were extracted from
support tissue within the gray matter, which is not known for harboring
stem cells.
When the donor cells were subjected to a bath of
growth agents within cell cultures, a type of cell emerged that behaves
like something called a neural progenitor - a cell that is a bit further
along in development than a stem cell but shares a stem cells vaunted
ability to divide and transform into different types of brain cells.
Even when the cells from the epilepsy patients were
transplanted into mice, bypassing any growth enhancements, they were
able to take cues from their surroundings and produce new neurons.
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 UF
McKnight Brain Institute researchers were able to purify and
grow highly adaptable cells called adult human neural
progenitors from mature human brain tissue. The progenitor cells
could be useful in the development of therapies and diagnostics
for brain disease. The green marker indicates a support brain
cell called an astrocyte and the red marker is an indication of
a stem cell, which is highly valued for its ability to transform
into any cell type. Blue marks the cell nucleus. Photo by
Noah Walton/UF McKnight Brain Institute |
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It was a long and difficult process, but we were
able to induce what are basically support cells in the human brain to
form beautiful new neurons in a dish, said Noah Walton, a graduate
student in the neuroscience department at the UF College of Medicine.
But what we really needed is for these support cells to turn into
neurons in the brain, and we found we could get them to do it. Something
in the environment in the rodent brain is sufficient to get these cells
to become neurons.
Scientists speculate a small amount of existing
progenitors may be emerging from the gray matter of the brain and
multiplying in torrents, or perhaps the aging clock of the mature cells
actually turns backward when the donor cells are in a new environment,
returning them to past lives as progenitors or as stem cells.
Its been shown that the same sorts of tissue from
the mouse brain can give rise to rapidly dividing cells, but this shows
it is true with human cells, said Ben Barres, M.D., Ph.D., a professor
of neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine who was
not involved in the research. That these cells were able to integrate
into tissue in an animal model and actually survive - it was extremely
important to show that. Now the question is what will these cells do in
a human brain? Will they be able to survive for the long term and
rebuild circuitry? This work is a first step toward that end.
In addition to using the cells in treatments to
repair or replace damaged brain tissue, the ability to massively expand
cell populations could prove useful in efforts to test the safety and
efficacy of new drugs. It is also possible to genetically modify the
cells to produce neurotrophins - substances that help brain tissue
survive, researchers said.
The research was supported by grants from the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National
Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
Steindler and co-senior author Bjorn Scheffler, M.D., a UF
neuroscientist, are involved with RegenMed Inc., a biotechnology company
that seeks to use stem cell technology to develop human therapeutics.
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