Scienticians create liver cells from fat

[His Divine Shadow]

Okay, scientists

Anyway:

Science Daily posted:

TOKYO, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- Japanese researchers successfully created liver cells from subcutaneous fat, which they say could lead to a regenerative technique to repair human livers.

The researchers extracted subcutaneous fat from patients. From the fat tissues, they extracted stem cells thought capable of changing into different cells that make up organs or other issues, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua said.

The researchers added growth-inducing proteins. After incubating for about 40 days, nearly all of the cells turned into hepatic cells, the National Cancer Center Research Institute and the International Medical Center of Japan said.

Doctors said the detected proteins and a drug-metabolizing enzyme known to be synthesized only in the human liver.

To make the finding clinically applicable, researchers said they would have to determine a way to mass-produce the liver cells.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

Sounds kinda like having your cake and eating it too. If it pans out.

[Isana Kadeb]

So, you can get stem cells from fat and also amniotic fluid now? Are they the same?

[Admiral Valdemar]

They may both be of pluripotent nature with these cells being ASCs rather than ESCs, but I'd have to look into that. There are a great many sources for stem cells in the adult body. The trick is finding a decent source of totipotent cells that can reform into any other type of tissue, rather than a select few related to its original function.

[Darth Servo]

Nice development but I wish they would hurry up and make some islet cells.

[AMX]

They may both be of pluripotent nature with these cells being ASCs rather than ESCs, but I'd have to look into that.

I'm reasonably sure they are only multipotent; otherwise there'd be more "there's more potential" hype in the article.
(In fact, I doubt those in the amniotic fluid are pluripotent, either.)

There are a great many sources for stem cells in the adult body. The trick is finding a decent source of totipotent cells that can reform into any other type of tissue, rather than a select few related to its original function.

Sure you mean toti-?
Because I'm not sure what you'd need a placenta (or other extraembryonic tissues) for in stem cell therapy.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'm reasonably sure they are only multipotent; otherwise there'd be more "there's more potential" hype in the article.
(In fact, I doubt those in the amniotic fluid are pluripotent, either.)

I only skim read the article, I confess.

Sure you mean toti-?
Because I'm not sure what you'd need a placenta (or other extraembryonic tissues) for in stem cell therapy.

Totipotent can become any type of cell in the adult body, so they're able to do a great many jobs, albeit, with limitations pluripotent lines don't have such as self-replication before specialisation.

They're only found in early fertilisation, but there's apparently research in trying to make any ASC regress back to a fully totipotent cell line that may regenerate if they then become pluripotent or multipotent types.

Pluripotent are the ones from embryos which cause such controversy, which wouldn't exist if we could make any cell type go back through their specialisation process and become the basic template for any cell specialisation in the body. I recall a paper last year whereby mice spermatogonia were used to produce true pluripotent cell lines without worrying about moral quandaries we have today over ESCs.

[Justforfun000]

Admiral, what are the current possibilities with stem cells at as far as progress goes? I remember them saying such strange things like they were able to grow a human penis on the back of a rabbit with stem cells. Can this now be done and transplanted? I'm holding out hope for a true foreskin some day....

Seriously though, what kind of practical uses can we currently put stem cell research to work?

[AMX]

Totipotent can become any type of cell in the adult body,... <snip>

So can pluripotent cells; totipotent cells can also become extra-embryonic cells, which I can't see much point in (unless maybe if you want to clone something).

[Admiral Valdemar]

Admiral, what are the current possibilities with stem cells at as far as progress goes? I remember them saying such strange things like they were able to grow a human penis on the back of a rabbit with stem cells. Can this now be done and transplanted? I'm holding out hope for a true foreskin some day....

Seriously though, what kind of practical uses can we currently put stem cell research to work?

I'm not a stem cell expert, my speciality is microbes, but the main goal is total regeneration of any organ or tissue. Right now, there are limits to what we can do, however they are mainly down to stem cell supply, ethical dilemmas nd fabrication issues. A new bladder is one thing, but it's still very basic, though at least 3D. With better techniques, we can create new complex organs in vitro (problems with cell deat when cultures reach a certain depth without a circulatory network o feed them all).

There are plenty of people looking into how to refine in vivo regeneration e.g. injecting ESCs into a heart with scar tisue from an infarction and have the cells automatically assess the damage and transform to the myocardial cell type needed to repair it. The mechanics from cell signaling alone is compex, but we're getting there.

AMX: Yeah, it was likely pluripotent cells most looked into. It's been a while since I've read some of these abstracts, so totipotent types may be only a niche area of R&D.