Although many animals in nature have mastered the ability of regeneration in advance and can heal themselves without treatment, this is incomparable to humans at this stage. Today, after we are injured, the damaged tissues will still produce scars and even affect the body function, but regenerative medicine with stem cells as the core is challenging this fact.
Exploration of regeneration ability
Recently, a study in the sub-journal Nature, which uses endogenous stem cells from animals to repair tissues, analyzed the mechanism of tissue regeneration and its research and development prospects. The following is part of this study:
As we all know, the regenerative ability of salamanders is amazing. They can not only regenerate their tails, but also their limbs and hearts. What is even more amazing is that this regenerative ability of salamanders can maintain the whole life cycle.
Studies have shown that the tissue regeneration of animal models such as salamander involves many complicated steps, and many cells from different sources participate in it. Take limb regeneration as an example:
The ability of stem cells to repair and regenerate
Unlike amphibians, mammals have limited regenerative capacity. Generally speaking, only mammals in early development and shortly after birth have good regeneration ability. On the contrary, the regeneration ability of adult animal tissues is very limited, which will form scars during wound healing and bring about abnormal tissue reconstruction.
Stem cells and tissue regeneration
Stem cells play an important role in tissue repair and regeneration. After proliferation and differentiation, stem cells can develop into mature cell lines with specific functions and play a key role in tissue regeneration.
Mesenchymal stem cells are one of the most studied stem cells in human body. In contrast, these stem cells have the potential to differentiate into many types of cells, including bone cells, chondrocytes, muscle cells and fat cells.
According to different sources, mesenchymal stem cells can be roughly divided into the following categories:
■ Stem cells derived from bone marrow have the ability to move to the far end of the body, and can interact with the immune system to produce bioactive molecules and create a microenvironment suitable for tissue repair. Therefore, it has certain potential in medical treatment.
However, with the increase of age, inflammatory cytokines and microenvironment accumulated in the body will affect the quality of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells; In addition, its destructive collection method will also make clinical application more challenging.
■ It is found that umbilical cord contains a large number of umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells, which have strong multi-directional tissue differentiation potential and have many functions such as organ damage repair, hematopoietic recovery and immune regulation. Compared with bone marrow mesenchymal, it is widely used in the treatment of human multi-system diseases because of its "zero" immune rejection.
■ Fat is also the main source of mesenchymal stem cells. For humans, adipose tissue is rich in pluripotent stem cells, which can differentiate in vivo or in vitro to produce a variety of cell types.
At present, a patient with multiple skull injuries has been successfully treated by adipose-derived stem cells in China, but it is still mostly used in the field of medical beauty and anti-aging, such as breast enhancement and plastic surgery.
Today and Tomorrow of Regenerative Medicine
20 18 65438+ 10/2, in Nanjing Gulou Hospital, the world's first operation using regenerative medicine technology to treat premature ovarian failure was successful, and the patient has given birth to a healthy baby boy. This marks a breakthrough in the clinical research of ovarian regeneration in China.
20 18 On May 30th, a study by Newcastle University in England showed that 3D printing of human cornea can effectively help blind patients to see again. At present, researchers are still conducting experiments to ensure that corneal transplantation will not produce rejection and can work normally.
In the future, with the deepening of stem cell and tissue engineering research, it will stimulate more meaningful exploration, carry out more interdisciplinary research attempts, and narrow the distance of "whole blood resurrection" of the body.
Repair and regeneration of zhongyang stem cells
We look forward to the day when we can truly realize the tissue regeneration of human body and repair the tissue damage caused by congenital malformation, trauma or tumor. Today, what we need to do is to support and look forward to this day coming soon!