Morgridge Scientists Find Way to ‘Keep the Lights on’ for Cell Self-Renewal

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Newswise One remarkable quality of pluripotent stem cells is they are immortal in the lab, able to divide and grow indefinitely under the right conditions. It turns out this ability also may exist further down the development path, with the workhorse progenitor cells responsible for creating specific tissues.

A team from the Morgridge Institute for Research regenerative biology group, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and stem cell pioneer James Thomson, discovered a way to impose an immortal-like state on mouse progenitor cells responsible for producing blood and vascular tissue. By regulating a small number of genes, the cells became trapped in a self-renewing state and capable of producing functional endothelial, blood and smooth muscle cells.

The finding, to be published in the December 9, 2014 issue of Stem Cell Reports, points to a potential new approach to developing cells in the lab environment for use in drug screening, therapies and as a basic research tool.

The biggest takeaway for me is the ability to arrest development of these cells, says David Vereide, a Morgridge fellow in regenerative biology and lead author on the paper. Normally, these cells are ephemeral and get used up while differentiating into specific cell types, but we found a way to interrupt that.

During development, blood and vascular cells are thought to originate from a progenitor cell known as a hemangioblast. This research project identified and imposed six transcription factors on the cells that allowed hemangioblasts to keep proliferating over multiple generations. Transcription factors are proteins that regulate which genes get turned on or off in a genome.

In this case, the transcription factors act to keep the lights on in these cellular factories that kept them dividing and expanding, he says.

One exciting element of this research, Vereide says, is it could greatly improve the efficiency of creating cell types that have research and therapeutic value.

Progenitor cells, the sons and daughters of stem cells that give rise to specific tissue, are usually the end steps in producing the key building-block cells for the body brain, vasculature, bone, etc.

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Morgridge Scientists Find Way to 'Keep the Lights on' for Cell Self-Renewal