A new scientific development conjures up sci-fi images
of Rutger Hauer’s android in Blade Runner – lab-cultured eyes, brain
parts, and glands. Yet that is exactly what researchers at Kobe's Riken
Center for Developmental Biology have achieved.
Yoshiki Sasai and his team at Riken's Organogenesis and Neurogenesis Group have developed a neoteric cell culture technique for growing embryonic stem cells in fluid 3-D assemblages. Their latest report revealed that embryonic stem (ES) cells grown under certain conditions can self-organize themselves into a partial pituitary gland that is functional when transferred into mice. After using this technology to grow mouse ES cells they matched the culture environment to mimic the chemical environment that promulgates the anterior pituitary.
This development requires interactions between two tissues: the oral ectoderm, and the hypothalamic neuroectoderm, the latter generating the more familiar hypothalamus. The ensuing interaction causes a region of the oral ectoderm to fold in on itself, and then detach, forming a sac called Rathke's pouch. Continuing to differentiate, cells within the pouch go on to produce six different types of hormone-producing cells found in the mature anterior pituitary. By direction of the hypothalamus, each cell manufactures a varying hormone. Streaming into the blood, these hormones can regulate blood pressure, growth, sex organ function, and metabolism.
When grown in 3-D cultures and treated with the correct signaling molecules, Riken's ES cells mirrored this process. "ES cells produced both oral ectoderm and hypothalamic tissues in 3D culture," commented Sasai. "When both are induced together, they spontaneously form layers back to back by self-organization. When they are in contact, signals from hypothalamic tissues act on oral ectoderm to induce Rathke's pouch. It takes about two weeks to develop Rathke's pouch and a total of three weeks for the hormone-producing pituitary."
Yoshiki Sasai and his team at Riken's Organogenesis and Neurogenesis Group have developed a neoteric cell culture technique for growing embryonic stem cells in fluid 3-D assemblages. Their latest report revealed that embryonic stem (ES) cells grown under certain conditions can self-organize themselves into a partial pituitary gland that is functional when transferred into mice. After using this technology to grow mouse ES cells they matched the culture environment to mimic the chemical environment that promulgates the anterior pituitary.
This development requires interactions between two tissues: the oral ectoderm, and the hypothalamic neuroectoderm, the latter generating the more familiar hypothalamus. The ensuing interaction causes a region of the oral ectoderm to fold in on itself, and then detach, forming a sac called Rathke's pouch. Continuing to differentiate, cells within the pouch go on to produce six different types of hormone-producing cells found in the mature anterior pituitary. By direction of the hypothalamus, each cell manufactures a varying hormone. Streaming into the blood, these hormones can regulate blood pressure, growth, sex organ function, and metabolism.
When grown in 3-D cultures and treated with the correct signaling molecules, Riken's ES cells mirrored this process. "ES cells produced both oral ectoderm and hypothalamic tissues in 3D culture," commented Sasai. "When both are induced together, they spontaneously form layers back to back by self-organization. When they are in contact, signals from hypothalamic tissues act on oral ectoderm to induce Rathke's pouch. It takes about two weeks to develop Rathke's pouch and a total of three weeks for the hormone-producing pituitary."
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