A group such as Kyoto University has announced that it has succeeded in recovering the walking function by producing "ken" cells that connect bones and muscles from human iPS cells and transplanting them to rats with injured Achilles ken.
This was announced at an online press conference by a group of Associate Professor Makoto Ikeya of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University.
"Ken" that connects bones and muscles has low regenerative ability and is considered to be a tissue that is difficult to treat when injured, and conventional treatment methods using other tissues of the body also have a risk of complications. It has become.
The group transplanted 3 million "ken" cells produced from human iPS cells into rats with ruptured Achilles ken and examined the changes.
As a result, the non-transplanted rat was in a state where the heel part of the foot was lowered when walking, but in the transplanted rat, the heel position was doubled after 2 weeks, and it was healthy. It means that it has recovered to the same extent as a normal rat.
In addition, we were able to confirm a reaction indicating that some of the transplanted cells stayed in the recovered Achilles ken and promoted the recovery of gait function.
Associate Professor Ikeya said, "In the future, we believe that it will not only be applicable to the treatment of patients, but will also lead to research on diseases, and we would like to consider various ways to use it."