Source: Agence France Presse (AFP)
Posted: January 20, 2008 7:54 PM ET
Summary:
Agence France Presse (AFP) reports researchers improved muscle function in mice with muscular dystrophy using embryonic stem cells:
"A treatment for muscular dystrophy may be within view after US scientists reported Sunday they used stem cell transplants to improve muscle function in mice afflicted with the disease."
The report explains how the treatment works:
"In the study, researchers report on a new technique which allowed them to coax embryonic mouse cells into becoming muscle cells that were injected directly into rodents with the Duchenne form of the disease...In order to do this the researchers manipulated a gene called Pax3 that is active in the earliest stages of stem cell development -- before the cells become, in other words, blood, bone, muscle or other specialised tissue in the body."
The results of the study, while only in mice, showed potential for the development of a human treatment for muscular dystrophy:
"In tests measuring muscle development, the muscles contracted with three times as much force as control mice who had the disease but had not been given the treatment. The results were in fact closer to normal mice, the study reported. And even after three months, there were no tumours."
