Source: Libre de Bruxelles, Universit
Date: March 8, 2011
Summary:
Researchers from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) led by Dr. Cédric Blanpain have isolated the earliest cardiovascular progenitors that arise during the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells. Pluripotent stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) have the capacity to differentiate into any cell type in the body, including cardiac and vascular cells, which give hope that one day, we can use these cells to replace the death or damaged cells in various diseases. The discovery of novel methods allowing the purification of cardiovascular progenitors during embryonic stem cell differentiation is thus essential before these cells could be used in large scale to treat patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases or for drug discovery.
Researchers led by Dr Cédric Blanpain, FNRS researcher at IRIBHM, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium, studied the mechanisms that govern the specification of cardiovascular progenitors during pluripotent stem cell differentiation. In a new study published in the Journal of Cell Biology, the ULB researchers used genetically engineered embryonic stem cells that become fluorescent when the stem cells become cardiovascular progenitors. By isolating these fluorescent cells, they purified the cardiovascular progenitors and differentiated these cells into beating cardiac cells in vitro and in vivo.
