The study, which was published in the August issue of Experimental Neurology, demonstrated that both mouse and human stem cells that produce bone marrow can be reprogrammed in the laboratory to become immature nerve cells. Neuroscientists continue to seek alternatives to human embryonic neurons as a source of therapeutic cells for brain repair, said Paul Sanberg, PhD, director of the University of South Florida neurosciences program. Bone marrow stem cells are readily accessible because they are already collected from bone marrow donors for certain cancer treatments. And stem cells can be extracted from a patient's own bone marrow, so they are less likely to be rejected than neural cells from other sources. Stem cells are primitive cells that can multiply indefinitely, migrate to different parts of the body, and develop into any kind of tissue.
Bone marrow retains the ability to generate stem cells throughout life.
Left to their own devices, these bone marrow stem cells typically give rise to bone, blood, and cartilage. When these transformed bone marrow cells were combined with fetal rat brain tissue in a petri dish, the number of neuron-like cells doubled. More studies are needed to determine whether the bone marrowbderived stem cells triggered to resemble early nerve cells can actually develop into functioning neurons, Dr. Sanchez-Ramos said. The researchers have begun cloning the stem cells and transplanting them into an animal model for stroke to see if they can replace damaged brain tissue. We told them that he had a disease that made his muscles stop working, but that he could still hear them and knew exactly what they were saying to him.