For the first time in China, a human mid-term kidney has been cultivated in pigs
Chinese scientists have cultivated human mid-term kidneys in pigs for the first time
The international academic journal Cell Stem Cells, headquartered in the United States, published a new study by a Chinese research team on the 7th, showing that they have successfully cultivated human mid-term kidneys in pigs. This is also the world's first report on the heterologous cultivation of humanized functional organs in vivo.
Lai Liangxue, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, said that the serious shortage of donor organs has limited the wide application of organ transplantation in clinical practice. The in vivo cultivation of organ xenogeneics based on stem cells may be an ideal way to solve this problem in the future.
"The humanized organs obtained through this pathway will not only have more comprehensive cell types and more complete organ structures and functions, but also effectively avoid immune rejection issues in xenograft or allogeneic organ transplantation due to the fact that donor cells come from the patient's own body." Lai Liang's theory.
Previously, there were many technical obstacles to achieving in vivo cultivation of humanized organ xenografts, which led to the failure of the idea of cultivating human organs from pigs. This study utilized a novel human induced pluripotent stem cell with high differentiation potential, strong competition, and anti apoptotic ability, combined with an optimized embryo compensation technology system, to achieve in vivo cultivation of humanized mid kidneys in a kidney deficient pig model.
In the study, the cells derived from humans were injected into pig embryos and then transplanted into surrogate pigs. The pig model used in it has undergone genetic modification and lacks the genes required for kidney development, leaving a space for transplanted human cells.
This study strictly followed relevant ethical regulations and international practices, and terminated the pregnancy of surrogate pigs within 3 to 4 weeks of gestational age. Two embryos of mid kidney chimeric pigs with a gestational age of 25 days and three embryos with a gestational age of 28 days were obtained. Middle kidney refers to the second stage of kidney development in which the kidney in the body has already developed into a mid stage kidney.
The immunofluorescence staining results for key functional genes in kidney development have shown that human donor cells have differentiated into functional cells expressing these genes, indicating that with embryonic development, human donor cells in pig fetuses will be able to support humanized kidney generation.
The researchers stated that this achievement has demonstrated for the first time the feasibility of cultivating humanized functional parenchymal organs in heterologous animals based on stem cell and embryo compensation technology, taking a crucial first step towards using organ defect animal models for organ heterologous in vivo cultivation. It is of great significance in solving the problem of severe shortage of donor organs.
