Made-To-Order Human Kidneys Closer To Reality After Experimental Breakthrough
Made-To-Order
Human Kidneys Closer To Reality After Experimental Breakthrough
by
Ben Renner July 4, 2019
OKAZAKI,
Japan — The idea of lab-grown organs being used to save human
lives sounded more like science fiction than reality just a few decades ago,
but new research out of Japan suggests man-made organs may be a viable option
for patients in need in the not so distant future.
Researchers from the National Institute for Physiological
Sciences in Okazaki, Japan successfully grew functional mouse kidneys inside rats using only a few donor stem cells,
potentially paving the way for humans to one day benefit from lab-grown
kidneys.
All of this is especially relevant to end-stage renal disease
patients in need of kidney transplants. Many renal patients never receive the kidney transplant they need due to a worldwide
shortage of donor kidneys. For example, in just the United States alone there
are currently 95,000 people waiting for a donor kidney.
For this experiment, researchers used a method that has already
shown promising results in the past, called blastocyst complementation.
During this process, scientists take the clusters of cells formed shortly after
fertilization, that will eventually develop into a fetus, from deformed animals
that are missing certain organs. These cell clusters are then injected with
stem cells from a healthy donor. The healthy donor doesn’t have to necessarily
be from the same species, just as in this case mouse stem cells were used on
rats.
After injection, these stem cells assimilate themselves to their
new surroundings and form the entire missing organ in the new animal. The newly
grown organ retains the characteristics of its original stem cell donor, making
it eligible to be used in a transplant.
“We previously used blastocyst complementation to generate rat
pancreas in apancreatic mutant mice,” explains lead study author Teppei
Goto in a statement. “We therefore decided to investigate
whether the method could be used to generate functional kidneys, which would
have much greater application in regenerative medicine owing to the high donor
demand.”
When researchers injected pseudo-pregnant rats with mouse stem cells, the resulting fetuses all
developed normally. More than two-thirds of the resulting rat babies contained
two mouse kidneys, and all of those kidneys were shown to be structurally
correct and at least half could potentially create urine.
“Our findings confirm that interspecific blastocyst
complementation is a viable method for kidney generation,” says corresponding
author Masumi Hirabayashi. “In the future, this approach could be used to
generate human stem cell-derived organs in livestock, potentially extending the
lifespan and improving the quality of life of millions of people worldwide.”
The study is published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
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