Stem Cell Assignment
1. Summary of “Your Inner Healers”
New scientific discoveries have shown that adult mouse cells can be “rewound” to once again be pluripotent like they were in their former embryonic state by adding a mixture of genes to the cells (called induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, or iPSCs).
This contradicts the natural progression of cells’ potency as they age: in their early formation, embryonic cells have the ability to mature into any one of the 220 types of human cells, and soon after that they begin to lose potency and are only multipotent — able to develop into just a few different types of cells, until finally they become terminally differentiated, and therefore unable to develop into any other types of cells.
The only naturally …show more content…
The scientists found that the tissues they had collected also had ALS, which meant they had essentially created the disease outside of the human body. Using these cells, scientists could perform tests to better understand the dysfunction of nerve cells in patients with ALS.
This same concept could potentially be applied to a variety of diseases as a faster and safer way of testing drugs meant to help cure them. Many pharmaceutical companies are becoming more interested and involved in these types of disease and drug testing, as well as the scientific community.
Embryonic stem cells, which are different from the iPSCs described here, have faced roadblocks in the form of government defunding their research and the general population raising concerns about the morality of using embryos for research. They also faced challenges when scientists became too optimistic, and hoped the stem cells would prove effectively therapeutic, rather than just a means to perform drug tests. So far these attempts have failed in …show more content…
Additionally, infertility affects 15 percent of couples, and 7 percent of men. Recently, research has shown that transcription factors present in the various cell stages undergone by sperm cells may be influential in how fertile the male patient is, especially at the important stage of forming stem cells in the testes (becoming spermatogonial stem cells). Researchers have found that some mice whose 33 Rhox genes were removed were lacking in their spermatogonial stem cell count. It was then found that just removing Rhox10 (only one of the 33 genes) provided the same results. These mice didn’t have defective cells, they just didn’t have a normal amount — this was because the earlier cells hadn’t differentiated into spermatogonial stem cells, so the mice testes failed to expand and thus lowered their potential sperm counts later in life. Since Rhox genes are found on the X chromosome; it makes sense that it affects male fertility, because males only have one copy of the X chromosome, so mutations are more likely to pose a problem for them. Researchers also found that Rhox genes could be involved in testicular cancer due to cells that are frozen in earlier stages, and the genes might also prove helpful in attempts to increase male fertility using stem cell
1. Summary of “Your Inner Healers”
New scientific discoveries have shown that adult mouse cells can be “rewound” to once again be pluripotent like they were in their former embryonic state by adding a mixture of genes to the cells (called induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, or iPSCs).
This contradicts the natural progression of cells’ potency as they age: in their early formation, embryonic cells have the ability to mature into any one of the 220 types of human cells, and soon after that they begin to lose potency and are only multipotent — able to develop into just a few different types of cells, until finally they become terminally differentiated, and therefore unable to develop into any other types of cells.
The only naturally …show more content…
The scientists found that the tissues they had collected also had ALS, which meant they had essentially created the disease outside of the human body. Using these cells, scientists could perform tests to better understand the dysfunction of nerve cells in patients with ALS.
This same concept could potentially be applied to a variety of diseases as a faster and safer way of testing drugs meant to help cure them. Many pharmaceutical companies are becoming more interested and involved in these types of disease and drug testing, as well as the scientific community.
Embryonic stem cells, which are different from the iPSCs described here, have faced roadblocks in the form of government defunding their research and the general population raising concerns about the morality of using embryos for research. They also faced challenges when scientists became too optimistic, and hoped the stem cells would prove effectively therapeutic, rather than just a means to perform drug tests. So far these attempts have failed in …show more content…
Additionally, infertility affects 15 percent of couples, and 7 percent of men. Recently, research has shown that transcription factors present in the various cell stages undergone by sperm cells may be influential in how fertile the male patient is, especially at the important stage of forming stem cells in the testes (becoming spermatogonial stem cells). Researchers have found that some mice whose 33 Rhox genes were removed were lacking in their spermatogonial stem cell count. It was then found that just removing Rhox10 (only one of the 33 genes) provided the same results. These mice didn’t have defective cells, they just didn’t have a normal amount — this was because the earlier cells hadn’t differentiated into spermatogonial stem cells, so the mice testes failed to expand and thus lowered their potential sperm counts later in life. Since Rhox genes are found on the X chromosome; it makes sense that it affects male fertility, because males only have one copy of the X chromosome, so mutations are more likely to pose a problem for them. Researchers also found that Rhox genes could be involved in testicular cancer due to cells that are frozen in earlier stages, and the genes might also prove helpful in attempts to increase male fertility using stem cell