Limb Re-growth Promise from Simple Chemical Cocktail

Researchers have found that a simple chemical cocktail can coax mouse muscle fibres to become the kinds of cells found in the first stages of a regenerating limb.

Their study is the first demonstration that mammal muscle can be turned into the biological raw material for a new limb.

Phantom Limb Syndrome - Causes - Experiments - Treatment
A phantom limb is a complex phenomenon involving a sensation that an amputated or a missing limb, or an organ, is still attached to the body.

Darren R. Williams and Da-Woon Jung said their 'relatively simple, gentle, and reversible' methods for creating the early stages of limb regeneration in mouse cells 'have implications for both regenerative medicine and stem cell biology'.

In the future, they suggest, the chemicals they use could speed wound healing by providing new cells at the injured site before the wound closes or becomes infected.

Their methods might also shed light on new ways to switch adult cells into the all-purpose, so-called 'pluripotent', stem cells with the potential for growing into any type of tissue in the body.

Accident and Trauma Care - Golden Hour - Taking Care - Don’t
Accident and trauma care is an important public health challenge that requires immediate attention. Injury (trauma) is the leading cause of death for all age groups under the age of 44.

The scientists describe the chemical cocktail that they developed and used to turn mouse muscle fibers into muscle cells.

Williams and Jung then converted the muscle cells turned into fat and bone cells.

About Stem Cells
Encyclopedia section of medindia gives general info about Stem Cells

Those transformations were remarkably similar to the initial processes that occur in the tissue of newts and salamanders that is starting to re-grow severed limbs.

The study appears in the journal ACS Chemical Biology. (ANI)

Source-ANI