Study of the human embryo derived cells identifies bottlenecks that limit the formation of colonies -
A time-lapse study of human embryos derived from cells identified the bottlenecks limiting the formation of colonies, a finding that could lead to better use in regenerative medicine.
biologists from the University of Sheffield Centre for Stem Cell Biology led by Professor Peter Andrews and engineers in complex systems and signal Processing Group headed by Professor Daniel Coca studied human pluripotent stem cells, which are a potential source of cells for regenerative medicine because they have the ability to produce any type of cell in the body.
However, the use of these stem cells in therapy is currently hampered by the fact that they can acquire genetic changes during prolonged cultivation which are non-random and resemble mutations in cancer cells .
researchers used time-lapse imaging of human embryonic stem individual cells to identify aspects of their behavior that limit growth and would be targets for mutations that enable cells to grow more efficiently
Dr Ivana Barbaric, from the University of Sheffield Department of biomedical sciences, said :. "We study pluripotent stem cells, which have enormous potential for use in regenerative medicine because of their ability to become any cell in the human body. A prerequisite for this is to maintain a large number of undifferentiated cells culture. However, there are many obstacles such as cells tend to die intensively during cultivation, and they can undergo spontaneous mutation. Some of these genetic mutations are known to provide stem cells with higher growth, their overcomes culture. - A phenomenon called adaptation culture, which mimics the behavior of cancer cells
"in the pluripotent stem cells to be safely used in regenerative medicine, we must understand how suboptimal conditions culture, for example cell culture at low split ratios, affects the cells and can lead to adaptation of the culture. "
research team combined the use of Time-. lapse microscopy, single cell monitoring and mathematical modeling to characterize the bottlenecks affecting the survival of normal human embryonic stem cells and compared them with cells adapted
They identified three major bottlenecks affecting colony: survival after plating, failure to re-enter the cell cycle and cell death continues after division.
in the state of culture, they found cells adapted better in all of these points leading to more settlements. Bottlenecks were also mitigated by cell to cell contact and pro-survival Compounds
Dr. Veronica Biga, automatic control of the University and Systems Engineering Department, said. "To extract . information on cell death, mitosis and movement, we developed new methods for image analysis and measure many parameters from time-lapse videos "
She added:" We plan to develop the methods of this study in an image processing solution and analysis software for use in monitoring the behavior of cells in applications such as the growing conditions of screening, drug discovery, monitoring and minimizing the occurrence of genetic defects by time-lapse. "
EmoticonEmoticon