Tuesday, 06 February 2018 10:28

First step towards in generating artificial adrenal gland Featured

A team of researchers from the William Harvey Research Institute at Queen Mary University of London has succeeded in gaining cells from urine, transforming them into induced pluripotent stem cells and converting them into a Kind of artificial adrenal gland with steroid-producing cells. The model could be used in investigations of possible treatments for adrenal diseases such as adrenal insufficiency.
 
The adrenal glands, which are located on the upper surface of each kidney, are responsible for releasing various hormones. Adrenal diseases occur when the adrenal glands produce too much or too little of these hormones, which can have an adverse influence on growth, development and metabolism.

Cells were obtained from healthy and patients with congenital adrenal gland diseases. The induced pluripotent stem cells (hiSCs) were generated by activating two signalling pathways in the cells via a single transcription factor. The obtained hiSCs expressed the enzymes responsible for steroid production, such as corticol, after they received physiological stimuli, for instance ACTH, according to a press release from the institute.

The steroid profile of hiSCs in patients with a monogenic adrenal gland disorder (congenital adrenal hyperplasia) has been changed according to their profile during diagnosis. When the non mutated gene has been inserted into these cells, the steroid profile was back to normal and similar to the hiSCs obtained from healthy donors.

In addition to the importance of this work for therapy, it may also be a further step in the direction of a human-on-a-chip approach, in which the most important organs of the human being are simulated in a miniaturized form on a microfluidic system to replace animal experiments.

The researchers have published their work in Cell Reports.
‘Modeling Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and Testing Interventions for Adrenal Insufficiency Using Donor-Specific Reprogrammed Cells’ by Ruiz-Babot et al. Cell Reports. doi 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.01.003
 
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