Most people with hemophilia B require constant injections to replenish their clotting factors, but a new study shows that a single injection can treat the disease. The study from Salk Institute has demonstrated in mice that hemophilia B can be treated for life with one single injection, containing disease-free liver cells that can produce their missing clotting factor. The study is published in Cell Reports.
Hemophelia
is a disorder where the body cannot properly form blood clots due to lack of clotting factors in the blood. The new findings could drastically change what it means to be diagnosed with hemophilia B, and could pave the way toward similar treatments for other, related genetic disorders.
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‘Hemophilia B can be treated for life with one single injection, containing disease-free liver cells that can produce their missing clotting factor.’
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Hemophilia B is caused by defects in the gene for a protein called clotting factor IX (FIX). Hemophiliacs may make reduced amounts of the protein, or lack a functional version altogether, leading to life-threatening delays in blood clotting. Currently, patients are treated with injections--as often as a few times a week--containing FIX made in animal cells and then purified. But the approach is expensive, time-consuming and can become less effective over time.
Recently, Salk scientists developed a new approach, treating mice genetically engineered to have hemophilia B with strands of messenger RNA encoding the FIX gene. Like the standard treatment, however, this required repeat injections each time levels of the messenger RNA ran low. So the scientists wanted to try a more permanent approach: transplanting healthy liver cells, capable of producing FIX, into patients.
![Here’s Everything You Should Know About Haemophilia]( "Here’s Everything You Should Know About Haemophilia")
Haemophilia is a condition in which the blood doesn't clot normally. Medicines for it are not available in India and are imported, which makes them very expensive.
"The appeal of a cell-based approach is that you minimize the number of treatments that a patient needs," says Suvasini Ramaswamy, a former Salk research associate in the Verma lab and first author of the new paper. "Rather than constant injections, you can do this in one shot."
Since donor livers are often in short-supply, the researchers instead turned to stem-cell strategies to produce the healthy liver cells. They collected blood samples from two human patients with severe hemophilia B, who are unable to produce FIX. Then, in the lab, they reprogrammed the cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which have the capability to turn into many other cell types, including liver. Using CRISPR/Cas9, a tool that can alter genes, they then repaired the mutations in each patient's FIX gene. Finally, they coaxed those repaired cells to develop into liver precursor cells called hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) and transplanted them into mice with hemophilia B.
Rather than perform surgery on hemophilic mice--a risky undertaking when their blood can't always clot--the team transplanted the HLCs through the spleen to distribute the cells uniformly in the liver.
Not only did the new HLCs produce FIX, but they produced enough of the protein to allow the mice to form normal blood clots, and the cells continued to survive--and produce FIX--for at least a year after the transplantation.
In people with hemophilia, using their own cells to generate healthy HLCs, then transplanting them back into their bodies, could help avoid the immune complications that often accompany cell therapies. But more work is needed to translate the findings to the clinic.
"A lot of things have to happen before this can go into humans," says Ramaswamy.
Already, she adds, the work demonstrates the value in combining stem-cell reprogramming and new gene-modifying approaches to treat genetic diseases.
Source: Eurekalert
Here’s Everything You Should Know About Haemophilia
Haemophilia is a condition in which the blood doesn't clot normally. Medicines for it are not available in India and are imported, which makes them very expensive.
Advertisement
"The appeal of a cell-based approach is that you minimize the number of treatments that a patient needs," says Suvasini Ramaswamy, a former Salk research associate in the Verma lab and first author of the new paper. "Rather than constant injections, you can do this in one shot."
Since donor livers are often in short-supply, the researchers instead turned to stem-cell strategies to produce the healthy liver cells. They collected blood samples from two human patients with severe hemophilia B, who are unable to produce FIX. Then, in the lab, they reprogrammed the cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which have the capability to turn into many other cell types, including liver. Using CRISPR/Cas9, a tool that can alter genes, they then repaired the mutations in each patient's FIX gene. Finally, they coaxed those repaired cells to develop into liver precursor cells called hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) and transplanted them into mice with hemophilia B.
Rather than perform surgery on hemophilic mice--a risky undertaking when their blood can't always clot--the team transplanted the HLCs through the spleen to distribute the cells uniformly in the liver.
Not only did the new HLCs produce FIX, but they produced enough of the protein to allow the mice to form normal blood clots, and the cells continued to survive--and produce FIX--for at least a year after the transplantation.
In people with hemophilia, using their own cells to generate healthy HLCs, then transplanting them back into their bodies, could help avoid the immune complications that often accompany cell therapies. But more work is needed to translate the findings to the clinic.
"A lot of things have to happen before this can go into humans," says Ramaswamy.
Already, she adds, the work demonstrates the value in combining stem-cell reprogramming and new gene-modifying approaches to treat genetic diseases.
Source: Eurekalert
Gene Tests on Dogs Boost Hopes for Treatment of Haemophilia
Scientists said that they had treated haemophilia in dogs by fixing a flawed gene, marking a step forward towards treating the condition in humans, too.
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 Queen Victoria's Royal Family Was Plagued By Haemophilia BThe identity of the cursed blood disorder that troubled the British Royal Family in the 19th and early 20th centuries has been revealed. | Advertisement
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