Stem Cell Therapy In Dogs Offer Hope In Human Diseases

Dogs remain faithful companions to humans ever since their domestication thousands of years ago. Although the improvements in veterinary medicine have increased the life expectancy of dogs, it has simultaneously invited the occurrence of chronic and degenerative conditions in them, a common side effect of longevity. Modern medicines greatly rely upon the development of regenerative therapies to fight chronic diseases in humans. The base for regenerative medicine applies the usage of stem cells that are capable of exhibiting pluripotency – differentiating and maturing into many specialized cell types.

The differentiation of the stem cells can be guided to produce desired cell type and regenerate damaged tissues, upon their transplantation. These potentials of stem cell therapy in reversing the course of various complex diseases are lacking in dogs.

Development of a novel technique now offers stem cell generation from the blood samples of dogs, that seeds the hope to advance regenerative therapies in veterinary medicine, by a team of scientists from Osaka Prefecture University in Japan, published in the journal Stem Cells and Development.

Regerantive Therapy in Veterinary Medicine

The team had been working on isolating "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPSCs) from canine blood samples. iPSCs are a type of stem cell that can be "programmed" from a developed (or "differentiated") cell by introducing a specific set of genes into them.

These gene-encoded specific proteins called "transcription factors," that can mature into various cell types. "We successfully established an efficient and easy generation method of canine iPSCs from peripheral blood mononuclear cells. It may be possible to perform regenerative medicinal treatments in dogs", says Dr. Shingo Hatoya, Associate Professor from Osaka Prefecture University.

The team developed "footprint-free" stem cells by using a particular type of viral vector that can generate iPSCs without genomic insertion that cause tumor formation. This is automatically "silenced" via "microRNAs" expressed by the cells.

These cells were then grown in a special type of medium that contained various factors enhancing their pluripotency (including a "small-molecule cocktail" ). The team thereby successfully paved the way for an easy stem cell therapy technique by developing the germ layers, which form the basis of all organs.

"We believe that our method can facilitate the research involving disease modeling and regenerative therapies in the veterinary field. Dogs share the same environment as humans and spontaneously develop the same diseases, particularly genetic diseases", says Dr. Hatoya.

The study affirms that further research into regenerative therapies for canines might help find treatments and even cures, for some of the diseases that still plague humanity.

Source-Medindia