◎ Science and Technology Daily reporter Liu Chuanshu
Recently, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shenzhen Huada Institute of Life Sciences and other institutions have cultivated human totem stem cells similar to the 3-day state of fertilized egg development through somatic cell induction, which is currently the "youngest" human cells cultivated in vitro in the world, and is another subversive breakthrough in the field of regenerative medicine after scientists successfully induced human pluripotent stem cells. The relevant research results were published in the international academic journal Nature in the early morning of March 22, Beijing time.
It is understood that the researchers have developed a non-GMO, fast and controllable "cocktail" cell reprogramming method that can transform human pluripotent stem cells into totipotent 8-cell stage embryonic-like cells, which is equivalent to the 3-day state of fertilized eggs. The results will help achieve in vitro regeneration of human organs in the future, which is of great significance to solving the problems of organ shortage, allogeneic and xenotransplant rejection.
In 2012, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, who successfully induced already mature somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells at the blastocyst stage. Cells in the human blastocyst stage are fertilized eggs that develop for 5-6 days, and their ability to develop further is relatively limited.
This study takes the field a big step forward, obtaining embryonic cells that have been divided for the first time for only 3 days. In the early stages of fertilized egg development, huge changes occur every day, and it is these 2-3 days that allow scientists to obtain human 8-cell stage embryonic-like tocophetive stem cells for the first time through in vitro induction. This is the "youngest" human cell induced in vitro to date, with very strong developmental potential. The research will also help unlock the key to the early development of human embryos.
"These totipotent 8-cell embryonic-like cells reconstruct the embryonic state of the fertilized egg after only 3 divisions, which can differentiate into placental tissue and may develop into more mature body tissues compared to past pluripotent stem cells..." said the paper's corresponding authors, Professor Miguel A. Esteban of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Md. Abdul Mazid, Ph.D., and Dr. Wenjuan Li.
"This advance is also a model for combining regenerative medicine and single-cell sequencing techniques." Dr. Liu Longqi, another corresponding author of the paper and another corresponding author of the paper, introduced, "Through the method of large-scale single-cell multi-omics mapping, the efficient identification and mechanism analysis of cells or tissues obtained by stem cell technology in vitro or in vivo will greatly accelerate the development of regenerative medicine." ”
This is the first time researchers have "transformed" human pluripotent stem cells into totipotent embryonic cells in a real sense, allowing people to reverse transform the "adult" version of the cell into an "infantile" version of the cell with more possibilities. At the same time, since the totem cells obtained this time are closer to the original state of the early embryo, if they are used in regenerative medicine, the cultivated organs will be closer to the state of the real organs, which is more conducive to transplantation.
This breakthrough is due to advances in single-cell sequencing technology. In the past, researchers might have had to process and culture thousands of cells with less than a 10 percent chance of success. Today, based on BGI's self-developed single-cell library sequencing platform (DNBelab C4), combined with BGI's DNBSEQ sequencing technology, scientists can perform multi-dimensional single-cell analysis with high sensitivity and accuracy, quickly obtain cells with important developmental potential, and study the development direction of these cells.
In this study, the team also sorted and injected induced totipotent stem cells into mice for further development, and then used BGI's single-cell sequencing technology for large-scale cell mapping analysis. Ultimately, the researchers determined that the experimentally obtained totipotent stem cells were highly similar to human 8-cell stage embryonic cells, demonstrating the totipotency of the cells. This provides a scientific basis for the future use of patients' own cells for organ culture and for their own organ transplantation and replacement.
The study was led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shenzhen Huada Institute of Life Sciences, with the participation of a number of research teams from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, Jilin University, and Rajshahi University in Bangladesh. This study has passed the ethical review and strictly follows the corresponding regulations and ethical guidelines.
Source: Science and Technology Daily, Courtesy of Shenzhen Huada Life Science Research Institute
Editor: Liu Yiyang
Review: Wang Xiaolong
Final Judgement: Wang Yu