- Primordial germinal cells, which are precursors to spermatozoids, apparently have the capacity of turning into embryonic stem cells, according to a study made public Sunday.
Embryonic stem cells can be converted into different types of cells and subsequently tissues, thus offering the hope to fight a number of diseases that have thus far remained incurable.
Researcher from the Georgetown school of medicine and a Washington-based regional transplant consortium known as WRTC have obtained these primordial germinal cells shortly after donors' deaths.
These cells knows as CGPM were separated using a process that involves enzymes.
When the CGPM cells were placed in human embryonic stemcell cultures, they formed colonies that had characteristics similar to stem cells, according to Doctors Martin Dym and Nady Golestaneh, the main authors of the study presented here at a conference of the American Society for Cell Biology.
When these colonies of stem cells were allowed to grow and multiply, they displayed characteristics similar to somite entoblast and ectoblast cells found in an embryo.
This has led the researchers to believe that primordial germinal cells have a great potential for organ regeneration therapies.
Doctors pointed out that one could imagine a day when men could be cured from various diseases through testicular biopsy.
Scientists have the first evidence that those "reprogrammed stem cells" really have the potential to treat disease: They used skin from the tails of sick mice to cure the rodents of sickle cell anemia.
At issue: Turning adult cells into ones that mimic embryonic stem cells, master cells that can turn into any type of tissue. But no one yet knew whether those reprogrammed cells could create functioning tissue just like natural embryonic stem cells can.
Scientists know very little about how to direct an embryo-like stem cell to turn into the just the tissue they need, such as pancreas cells instead of nerve cells, for example.
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