Stanford scientists turn adult skin cells into muscle and vice versa

April 30, 2009

New study in the FASEB Journal shows how the genetic program of one cell type

can be changed to that of another

In a study featured on the cover of the May issue of The FASEB Journal,

researchers describe how they are able to reprogram human adult skin cells into

other cell types in order to decipher the elusive mechanisms underlying

reprogramming. To demonstrate their point, they transformed human skin cells

into mouse muscle cells and vice versa. This research shows that by

understanding the regulation of cell specialization it may be possible to

convert one cell type into another, eventually bypassing stem cells.

" Regenerative medicine provides hope of novel and powerful treatments for many

diseases, but depends on the availability of cells with specific characteristics

to replace those that are lost or dysfunctional, " said Helen M. Blau, Ph.D., the

senior scientist involved in the study, Associate Editor of The FASEB Journal,

Member of the Stem Cell Institute, and Director of the Baxter Laboratory in

Genetic Pharmacology at Stanford. " We show here that mature cells can be

directly reprogrammed to generate those necessary cells, providing another way

besides embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells of overcoming

this important bottleneck to restoring tissue function. "

The Stanford scientists sought to transform one specialized adult cell from one

species into a different specialized adult cell of another species. To do this,

they first used a chemical treatment to fuse skin and muscle cells together,

producing cells that had nuclei from human skin cells and mouse muscle cells. By

being encapsulated within the same cell wall, the human skin cells and mouse

muscle nuclei could now " talk " to one another via chemical signals. Then, the

scientists looked at the genes expressed from the human skin nuclei and mouse

muscle nuclei. (This was possible because one cell type was human and the other

was mouse, so the genes could be distinguished based on species differences.)

After several experiments, they were able to induce the human skin nuclei to

produce mouse muscle genes and induce the muscle nuclei to produce human skin

genes—effectively transforming the cell from one type to the other.

" Reprogramming mature cells will likely complement the use of embryonic stem

cells in regenerating tissues, " said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of

The FASEB Journal. " By elucidating the regulators of reprogramming, as the

Stanford group is doing, it may be possible to generate replacement cells in

cases where stem cells are not present or not appropriate. "

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