What Is The Job Of Stem Cells – Stem Cells are cells that do not yet have a specific role and can become almost any cell needed. They can also regenerate damaged tissue under the right conditions.
Scientists and doctors are interested in Stem cells because they help explain how certain body functions work and how they sometimes go wrong.
What Is The Job Of Stem Cells
Stem cells come from two main sources: adult body tissues and embryos. Scientists are also working on how to develop stem cells from other cells, using genetic “reprogramming” techniques.
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A person’s body contains stem cells throughout their life. The body can use these stem cells whenever it needs them.
Also called tissue-specific or somatic stem cells, adult stem cells exist throughout the body from the time an embryo develops.
The cells are in a nonspecific state, but are more specialized than embryonic stem cells. They remain in this state until the body needs them for a specific purpose, for example as skin or muscle cells.
Daily life means that the body constantly renews its tissues. In some parts of the body, such as the intestine and bone marrow, stem cells divide regularly to produce new body tissue for maintenance and repair.
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However, stem cells can be difficult to find. They can remain non-dividing and non-specific for years until the body calls on them to repair or grow new tissue.
Adult stem cells can divide or self-renew indefinitely. This means that they can generate various types of cells from the original organ or even completely regenerate the original organ.
This division and regeneration represents how a skin wound heals or how an organ such as the liver, for example, can repair itself after damage.
In the past, scientists believed that adult stem cells could only differentiate based on their tissue of origin. However, some evidence now suggests that they can differentiate to become other cell types as well.
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About 3 to 5 days after a sperm fertilizes an egg, the embryo takes the shape of a blastocyst, or ball of cells.
The blastocyst contains stem cells and subsequently implants in the uterus. Embryonic stem cells come from a 4-5 day old blastocyst.
When scientists take stem cells from embryos, they are usually extra embryos resulting from in vitro fertilization (IVF).
In IVF clinics, doctors fertilize several eggs in a test tube to ensure that at least one survives. They then implant a limited number of eggs to start a pregnancy.
Cell Specialization, Organization And Function
This single-celled zygote then begins to divide, forming 2, 4, 8, 16 cells, and so on. Now it’s an embryo.
Soon, and before the embryo implants in the uterus, this mass of approximately 150-200 cells becomes the blastocyst. The blastocyst is made up of two parts:
The inner cell mass is where embryonic stem cells are found. Scientists call these cells totipotent. The term totipotent refers to the fact that they have the total potential to develop into any cell in the body.
With the right stimulation, cells can become blood cells, skin cells, and all the other types of cells a body needs.
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In early pregnancy, the blastocyst stage continues for about 5 days before the embryo implants in the uterus. At this stage the stem cells begin to differentiate.
Scientists have used MSCs to create new body tissues, such as bone, cartilage, and fat cells. They could one day play a role in solving a wide range of health problems.
Scientists create them in the laboratory, using skin cells and other tissue-specific cells. These cells behave similarly to embryonic stem cells, so they could be useful for developing a variety of therapies.
To grow stem cells, scientists first extract samples from adult tissue or an embryo. They then put these cells into a controlled culture where they will divide and reproduce but will not specialize further.
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Researchers manage and share stem cell lines for different purposes. They can stimulate stem cells to specialize in a particular way. This process is known as directed differentiation.
Until now, it has been easier to grow large numbers of embryonic stem cells than adult stem cells. However, scientists are making progress with both cell types.
Embryonic stem cells are the most powerful, since their job is to transform every type of cell in the body.
Totipotent: These stem cells can differentiate into all possible cell types. The first cells that appear when the zygote begins to divide are totipotent.
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Multipotent: These cells can differentiate into a family of closely related cells. Adult hematopoietic stem cells, for example, can become red and white blood cells or platelets.
Oligopotent: Can differentiate into a few different cell types. Adult lymphoid or myeloid stem cells can do this.
Unipotent: they can only produce cells of one type, which is their own type. However, they are still stem cells because they can renew themselves. Examples include adult muscle stem cells.
Embryonic stem cells are considered pluripotent rather than totipotent because they cannot become part of extraembryonic membranes or the placenta.
What Stem Cell Is And Its Use?
First, with the right stimulation, many stem cells can take on the role of any cell type and, under the right conditions, can regenerate damaged tissue.
This potential could save lives or repair wounds and tissue damage in people after illness or injury. Scientists see many possible uses for stem cells.
Until now, for example, a person who needed a new kidney had to wait for a donor and then undergo a transplant.
There is a shortage of donated organs but, by instructing stem cells to differentiate in a certain way, scientists could use them to grow a specific type of tissue or organ.
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For example, doctors have already used stem cells just beneath the surface of the skin to create new skin tissue. They can then repair a severe burn or other injury by grafting this tissue onto the damaged skin, and the new skin will regrow.
Within 2 weeks of implanting the stem cells, networks of blood-perfused vessels had formed. The quality of these new blood vessels was as good as that of nearby natural ones.
The authors hoped that this type of technique could eventually help treat people with cardiovascular and vascular diseases.
Doctors may one day be able to use replacement cells and tissues to treat brain diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
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In Parkinson’s, for example, damage to brain cells leads to uncontrolled muscle movements. Scientists could use stem cells to replenish damaged brain tissue. This could restore specialized brain cells that stop uncontrolled muscle movements.
Scientists hope to one day be able to develop healthy heart cells in the laboratory that they can transplant into people with heart disease.
Similarly, people with type I diabetes might receive pancreatic cells to replace the insulin-producing cells that their immune system has lost or destroyed.
Doctors now routinely use adult hematopoietic stem cells to treat diseases such as leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and other immunodeficiency problems.
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Hematopoietic stem cells are found in the blood and bone marrow and can produce all types of blood cells, including red blood cells that carry oxygen and white blood cells that fight disease.
Bone marrow: These cells are taken under general anesthesia, usually from the hip bone or pelvis. Technicians then isolate the stem cells from the bone marrow for storage or donation.
Peripheral stem cells: A person receives several injections that cause the bone marrow to release stem cells into the blood. Next, the blood is removed from the body, a machine separates the stem cells, and doctors return the blood to the body.
Umbilical cord blood: Stem cells can be collected from the umbilical cord after birth, without any harm to the baby. Some people donate cord blood and others store it.
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For example, scientists have found that turning a particular gene on or off can lead to its differentiation. Knowing this helps them investigate which genes and mutations cause which effects.
Armed with this knowledge, they may be able to discover the causes of a wide range of diseases and conditions, for some of which there is not yet a cure.
Abnormal cell division and differentiation are responsible for conditions that include cancer and congenital disabilities that result from birth. Knowing what causes cells to divide incorrectly could lead to a cure.
Stem cells can also help in the development of new drugs. Instead of testing drugs on human volunteers, scientists can evaluate how a drug affects normal, healthy tissue by testing it on tissue grown from stem cells.
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There has been some controversy surrounding stem cell research. This is mainly work on embryonic stem cells.
The argument against using embryonic stem cells is that they destroy a human blastocyst and the fertilized egg cannot develop into a person.
Stem cell research often involves inserting human cells into animals, such as mice or rats. Some argue that this could create a part-human organism.
In some countries it is illegal to produce embryonic stem cell lines. In the United States, scientists can create or work with embryonic stem cell lines, but it is illegal to use federal funds to research stem cell lines created after August 2001.
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Anyone considering stem cell treatment should check with the provider or the FDA
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