Source: Stanford University Medical Center
Date: May 5, 2009
Summary:
Even cells aren't immune to peer pressure. Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have now shown that skin cells can be coaxed to behave like muscle cells -- and muscle cells like skin cells -- solely by altering who they hang out with: the relative levels of the ingredients inside the cell. The fickleness of the cells, and the relative ease with which they make the switch, provide a glimpse into the genetic reprogramming that must occur for a cell to become something it's not.
Harnessing these genetic makeovers will allow scientists to better understand how to induce specialized adult cells to revert to a stem-cell-like state in a process called induced pluripotency. These newly pluripotent, or iPS, cells, which can then be encouraged to branch out into a variety of other cell types, have shown increasing promise as possible therapies for disorders like diabetes. But Blau's experiments suggest an intriguing alternative to iPS: that of enticing specialized adult cells to move sideways from one developmental fate to another without requiring a dip into the stem cell pool.
