New method increases supply of embryonic stem cells

2014-01-27

(Press-News.org) Contact information: Press Office
pressinfo@ki.se
46-852-486-077
Karolinska Institutet
New method increases supply of embryonic stem cells A new method allows for large-scale generation of human embryonic stem cells of high clinical quality. It also allows for production of such cells without destroying any human embryos. The discovery is a big step forward for stem cell research and for the high hopes for replacing damaged cells and thereby curing serious illnesses such as diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

Currently human embryonic stem cells are made from surplus in vitro fertilized (IVF) embryos that are not used for the generation of pregnancies. The embryos do not survive the procedure. Therefore it has been illegal in the USA to to use this method for deriving embryonic stem cell lines. Sweden's legislation has been more permissive. It has been possible to generate embryonic stem cells from excess, early IVF embryos with the permission of the persons donating their eggs and sperm.

An international research team led by Karl Tryggvason, Professor of Medical Chemistry at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Professor at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore has, together with Professor Outi Hovatta at Karolinska Institutet, developed a method that makes it possible to use a single cell from an embryo of eight cells. This embryo can then be re-frozen and, theoretically, be placed in a woman's uterus. The method is already used in Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) analyses, where a genetic test is carried out on a single cell of an IVF embryo in order to detect potential hereditary diseases. If mutations are are not detected, the embryo is inserted in the woman's uterus, where it can grow into a healthy child.

"We know that an embryo can survive the removal of a single cell. This makes a great ethical difference," says Karl Tryggvason.

The single stem cell is then cultivated on a bed of a human laminin protein known as LN-521 that is normally associated with pluripotent stem cells in the embryo. This allows the stem cell to duplicate and multiply without being contaminated. Previously the cultivation of stem cells has been done on proteins from animals or on human cells, which have contaminated the stem cells through uninhibited production of thousands of proteins.

"We can cultivate the stem cells in a chemically defined, clinical quality environment. This means that one can produce stem cells on a large scale, with the precision required for pharmaceutical production," says Karl Tryggvason.

Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent and can develop into any kind of cell. This means that they can become dopamine producing cells, insulin producing cells, heart muscle cells or eye cells, to name but a few of the hopes placed on cell therapy using stem cells.

"Using this technology the supply of human embryonic stem cells is no longer a problem. It will be possible to establish a bank where stem cells can be matched by tissue type, which is important for avoiding transplants being rejected," says Karl Tryggvason.

### The study has been funded by the Swedish Research Council, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Söderberg Foundation, AFA Insurance, the Sigrid Juselius Foundation, the EU's Seventh Framework Programme and the Singapore National Medical Research Council. LN-521 has been developed by the Division of Matrix Biology at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics (MBB), Karolinska Institutet and is currently marketed by the biotechnology company BioLamina, founded by Karl Tryggvason.

Publication: "Clonal culturing of human embryonic stem cells on laminin-521/E-cadherin matrix in defined and xeno-free environment", Sergey Rodin, Liselotte Antonsson, Colin Niaudet, Oscar E. Simonson, Elina Salmela, Emil M. Hansson, Anna Domogatskaya, Zhijie Xiao, Pauliina Damdimopoulou, Mona Sheikhi, José Inzunza, Ann-Sofie Nilsson, Duncan Baker, Raoul Kuiper, Yi Sun, Elisabeth Blennow, Magnus Nordenskjöld, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, Juha Kere, Christer Betsholtz, Outi Hovatta and Karl Tryggvason. Nature Communications, online January 27, 2014, doi: 10.1038/ncomms4195.

Website of the journal: http://www.nature.com/ncomms

Contact the Press Office and download images: ki.se/pressroom

Karolinska Institutet – a medical university: ki.se/English

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Cracks in the cellular transport system can be key to a new generation of cancer therapies

2014-01-27

Researchers from Warwick Medical School have discovered a critical point of failure in the microscopic transport system that operates inside every cell in the human body. The ...

Ottawa researchers discover new combination therapy to kill cancer

2014-01-27

OTTAWA, ON – January 27, 2014 – Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada and is responsible for about 30% of all deaths, according to the Canadian ...

Study on DSM-5 shows effects on autism diagnosis and prevalence

2014-01-27

NEW YORK, N.Y. (January 27, 2014)— A new study finds that ...

Robotic operation for heart valve reconstruction holds promise

2014-01-27

A potentially fatal bacterial disease of the heart, infective endocarditis frequently affects the heart's tricuspid ...

Animate, inanimate, but also social groups form a discrete category in the brain

2014-01-27

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 27-Jan-2014 [ | E-mail ] var addthis_pub="eurekalert"; var addthis_options = "favorites, delicious, digg, facebook, twitter, google, newsvine, reddit, slashdot, stumbleupon, buzz, more" Share Contact: Federica Sgorbissa pressroom@sissa.it 39-040-378-7644 International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA) Animate, inanimate, but also social 'Social' groups form a discrete category in the brain For our brain, animate and inanimate objects belong to different categories and any information about them is stored and processed by different ...