Researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children ( SickKids ) and the University of Calgary have found that stem cells derived from adult skin can create neural cell types that can be transplanted into and function in mouse models of disease.

The research is published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

SickKids researchers previously discovered what type of cells can be made from these stem cells ( called skin-derived precursors, or SKPs ) based on the role played by neural-crest stem cells during embryogenesis. In addition to generating the peripheral nervous system, neural crest stem cells generate other tissues such as bone, cartilage, some types of muscle, and even part of the heart.

In The Journal of Neuroscience paper, the research team found that SKPs can efficiently generate a type of glial cell, called Schwann cells, that can myelinate demyelinated axons, and that have been shown to provide a good growth environment for injured central nervous system axons. These types of axons normally do not regenerate.

" Schwann cells have been proposed as a cell type for treatment of nerve injuries, demyelination disorders such as multiple sclerosis, and even spinal cord injury," said Freda Miller, the study's principal investigator, at the University of Toronto. " Our finding that we can efficiently generate and isolate these Schwann cells from SKPs raises the possibility that we could treat humans with Schwann cells derived from human skin stem cells, and perhaps even use the patient's own skin to generate Schwann cells for treatment."

The research showed that these SKP-derived Schwann cells can myelinate axons in culture, in the injured peripheral nerve, and even in the central nervous systems of mice that don't have myelin in their brains. While the research occurred in mouse models, some of their data indicate that human SKPs can do the same thing.

" Previous work has only dealt with SKPs in culture and their more basic biology. Now we have shown that SKPs can make at least one cell type that functions as predicted in animals," said Rajiv Midha, study author, at the University of Calgary. " This is the first time SKPs have been demonstrated to make bona fide neural cell types that can be transplanted into and function in animal models of disease."

The next steps for the research team are to perform similar functional studies for the other cell types that they have shown are made by SKPs, including nerve cells, and to ask whether these SKP-derived Schwann cells can function in situations of human nervous system disease, such as spinal cord injury.

Source: University of Toronto, 2006


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