Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 14 (Reporter Wei Mengjia) Pluripotent stem cells have unlimited proliferation characteristics and the ability to differentiate into all functional cell types of an organism.
After years of hard work, the team of Deng Hongkui from Peking University successfully developed a chemical small molecule induction technology to reverse human adult cells into pluripotent stem cells.
This technology for preparing pluripotent stem cells (human CiPS cells) independently developed by China solves the underlying technical bottleneck for the development of stem cells and regenerative medicine.
This breakthrough research result was published online in the international academic journal "Nature" on the evening of the 13th.
Pluripotent stem cells have a wide range of applications in cell therapy, drug screening and disease modeling, and are the most critical "seed cells" in the field of regenerative medicine.
During mammalian development, it exists only briefly in the early stages of embryonic development and then differentiates into the various types of adult cells that make up the organism, losing its "seed cell" properties.
How to reverse this natural developmental process and restore the early pluripotent state of highly differentiated adult cells has always been one of the most important scientific questions in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine.
Deng Hongkui's team has been working on developing new methods for regulating cell fate and establishing the underlying technology for stem cell preparation.
Inspired by the regeneration process of lower animals, the team found that highly differentiated human adult cells can undergo plastic changes similar to lower animal cells when induced by a combination of specific chemical small molecules.
Based on this discovery, the team conducted a large number of screening and combination of chemical small molecules, and finally successfully induced human CiPS cells to achieve "reversal" of the development process of human adult cells.
Deng Hongkui, director of the Stem Cell Research Center of Peking University, said, "This new technology breaks through the limitations of previous stem cell preparation technologies, making stem cell preparation simpler and safer, easier to standardize, and more convenient for clinical applications, and is a breakthrough in the field of regenerative medicine and stem cells in my country. It has created a bottleneck and brought new possibilities for the treatment of major diseases."
The team's previous research found that human CiPS cells can efficiently prepare islet cells, and safely and effectively improve blood sugar control in diabetic monkeys, highlighting the outstanding advantages of human CiPS cells in the treatment of major diseases in terms of safety and efficacy.