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Subject Scientists use stem cells to create human/pig chimera embryos
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Original Message American scientists have succeeded in breeding fetuses that are a combination of pig and human.

The task was more challenging than expected, researchers report in Cell. The experiment was first reported in a peer-reviewed scientific publication.

"The ultimate goal is to grow functional and organ and tissue transplants for humans, but we are still a long way from that," said Juan Carlos Izpisua, research director at the Belmonte Salk Institute.

However, in his view, this achievement is an important first step in this direction.

The researchers also created human-cow, mouse-rat combinations, or chimeras, in their experiments. The name comes from an ancient mythical monster with a lion's head, a goat's body and a snake's tail.

For non-human species, achievement is not new. The mouse was able to grow pancreatic tissue from rat cells as early as 2010.

Chimeras can be created by utilizing multifaceted stem cells. They are cells that have not begun to specialize in a particular task, such as skin cells or eye stem cells. When injected into the embryo of another animal, stem cells can adapt to the developmental stages of their new host and specialize in their function as the embryo develops.

Prior to this, genes that direct the formation of the desired organ can be deleted from the embryo. Because foreign instructions are injected into the embryo, the instructions are stored, filling the vacuum and forming missing organs.

In this way, the Salk Institute team succeeded in breeding mice that had a rat pancreas, heart or eye. They developed in the womb and lived at best for two years, which is the normal life span of a mouse.

In human cells, the tests proved more difficult. Initially, experiments were done on cow embryos, but they proved problematic. They were also expensive, so the group decided to focus on the pig.

The pig and the human are five times more distant than the mouse and rat. In addition, pig pregnancy only lasts one third of a person's pregnancy. Scientists had to adjust human stem cells to keep pace with the development of fetuses in pigs.

The team injected human cells, or ips cells, into multicellular stem cells into 1,500 porcine embryos. The contract took four years.

Transplanted human stem cells were brought to life in a fetus that grew in the womb. Human cells had been programmed to produce a fluorescent protein that glows green, so that they could be monitored.

When human piglets were aborted at three or four weeks, the fetuses had at most one hundred thousand human cells, told Jun Wu Nature, a member of the research team.

According to Wun, the number is small. In the researchers 'bulletin, Professor Belmonte described it as good news in the researchers' bulletin. It is a risk of experimentation when it is considered that combinations become too human.

Worst of all, it has been thought that the animal would accidentally grow a human brain.

In the Salk Institute's experiments, human cells did not begin to differentiate into brain cells. They developed into muscle cells and progenitor cells of other organs.

"Our next challenge is to increase efficiency and direct human cells to form a specific organ in the body," Belmonte said.

[link to www.cell.com (secure)]
[link to www.eurekalert.org (secure)]
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