Can stem cells from the bone marrow differentiate into nonhematopietic cells? how successfully they can be transplanted into different organs?

DD said:

Can stem cells from the bone marrow differentiate into nonhematopietic cells? how successfully they can be transplanted into different organs?

Margaret A. Goodell, Ph.D. associate Professor at the Center for Cell and Gene therapy at Baylor College of Medicine, has demonstrated the derivation of hematopoeietic side population cells, which are stem cells from the bone marrow that can differentiate into nonhematopoeitic cells. Muscle engraftment occured when hematopoeitic -derived stem cells were engrafted into skeletal muscle fibers at the site of injury and inflammation.

You can check Cambrex, a company providing mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). They have protocols estiblished for different cell lineage differentiation (bone, muscle etc.). MSCs isolated from bone marrow (part of haematopoetic stem cells).

I think what needs to made clear is that the bone marrow already contains different types of stem cells. The hematopoietic stem cells make the blood cells and it looks like they may also form other types of tissues such as hepatocytes, endothelial cells etc.

Mesenchmal stem cells, or as we use to call them in the old days-bone marrow stroma/fibroblasts, don't make blood cells but can make many different types of cells such as conective tissue, fat etc.

Both major types of stem cell populations are in bone marrow.

DD said:

Can stem cells from the bone marrow differentiate into nonhematopietic cells? how successfully they can be transplanted into different organs?

I think the jury is still out on the reports describing integration of cells from bone marrow into other tissues. There is some disagreement on whether the stem cells have the capacity to "transdifferentiate" i.e. become reprogrammed into a different tissue type, or whether they simply fuse with their destination cell. Either mechanism is still potentially useful for therapy.

One of the key factors is probably the niche environment in the tissue that receives the stem cells. Corinne Boulanger from Gilbert Smith's lab at NIH showed some interesting data at the recent ASCB meeting regarding the ability of the mammary niche to "reprogram" CNS stem cells to display a mammary phenotype. If this holds true for other microenvironments, it will be important to determine whether a hepatic niche can "reprogram" stem cells, either HSCs or mesenchymal stem cells, etc. into hepatocytes or other liver cell types.

The company StemCell Technologies, Inc - (like Cambrex listed above) - also has a nice range of products and literature about this topic.

http://www.stemcell.com/