Yahoo! News Story - Some Stem Cells May Be Less Versatile Than Thought

August 22, 2002

Carol Langer (carol.langer@...) has sent you a news article

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Thought you might be interested in seeing this information on stem cells derived from bone marrow.Carol

Some Stem Cells May Be Less Versatile Than Thought

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020822/hl_nm/stemcells_dc_1

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Health - Reuters

Some Stem Cells May Be Less Versatile Than Thought

Thu Aug 22, 6:29 PM ET

By Amy Norton

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although past animal research

has suggested stem cells in adult bone marrow can develop into

brain cells, the results of a new study in mice indicate that

this is not a universal phenomenon.

The finding may take some air out of the hope that a

person's own bone marrow cells could one day be used to replace

brain cells damaged by diseases such as stroke--a possibility

raised by some previous animal work.

"That was the promise, but our study suggests it's not that

simple," lead author Dr. H. Shine of Baylor College of

Medicine in Houston, Texas, told Reuters Health.

However, that's not to say that adult bone marrow cells

will not someday turn out to be a useful source of new brain

cells, according to the researcher. Instead, the new findings

indicate that the transformation of bone marrow cells into

brain cells is "probably not a general phenomenon," Shine

explained.

He and his colleagues report their findings in the August

23rd issue of Science.

In the study, the researchers transplanted bone marrow stem

cells from one type of lab mouse into another. The mice used as

"donors" carry a gene called LacZ in most of their cells, which

allowed the scientists to weed out which cells in the recipient

mice were derived from the bone-marrow-cell transplant.

Some of the mice were given brain injuries to see if the

donor bone marrow cells would develop into replacement brain

cells. However, Shine's team found no evidence of this--nor did

they find any donor-derived neural cells in the uninjured mice.

"Of course, we were disappointed," Shine said.

However, these results are far from the final word on the

potential of adult bone marrow cells in treating brain injury,

according to the researcher. Instead, he noted, it emphasizes

that there is much more work to be done.

SOURCE: Science 2002;297:1299.

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