Not unlike looking for the proverbial needle inside a haystack, a group of Michigan State University scientific study has found a gene that may be answer to the introduction of stem cells C cells that can potentially save countless lives by morphing into practically any cell in the body.
The gene, known as ASF1A, was not discovered by the team. However, it’s at least one of the genes accountable for the mechanism of cellular reprogramming, a phenomenon that may turn one cell type into another, that is key to the building of stem cells.
In a paper published within the journal Science, the researchers describe how they analyzed more than 5,000 genes from a human egg, or oocyte, before determining that the ASF1A, together with another gene known as OCT4 and a helper soluble molecule, were those accountable for the reprogramming.
“This can be considered a major breakthrough in the way we glance at just how stem cells are developed,” said Elena Gonzalez-Munoz, an old MSU post-doctoral researcher and first author of the paper. “Researchers are simply now determining how adult somatic cells for example skin cells can be turned into embryonic stem cells. Hopefully this will be the way to understand much more about how that mechanism works.”
In 2006, an MSU team identified the thousands of genes that reside in the oocyte. It was from those, they concluded, they could find out the genes accountable for cellular reprogramming.
In 2007, a group of Japanese researchers discovered that by introducing four other genes into cells, stem cells might be created without using an individual egg. These cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs.
“This is essential because the iPSCs are derived from adult tissue and can be an ideal genetic match for any patient,” said Jose Cibelli, an MSU professor of animal science along with a person in the team.
The researchers state that the genes ASF1A and OCT4 work in tandem with a ligand, a hormone-like substance which is produced in the oocyte called GDF9, to facilitate the reprogramming process.
“We believe that ASF1A and GDF9 are a couple of players among many others that remain to be discovered that are area of the cellular-reprogramming process,” Cibelli said.
“We hope that in the near future, using what we have learned here, we will be in a position to test new hypotheses that will reveal more secrets the oocyte is avoiding us,” he said. “In turn, we will be able to develop new and safer cell-therapy strategies.”
Hasan Otu of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is also a person in the study team.
