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Successful stem cell research conducted by a team from the University of Southern California hope to see their research gaining good ground for possible human clinical trials soon.
Successful stem cell research to benefit stroke patients
This, after a study published in the journal Nature Medicine reveals that researchers were able to successfully yield positive results with lab mice in reversing the effects of brain damage among stroke patients.
Transplanted human cells are combined with a special protein called the 3K3A-APC which is a variant of the ‘activated protein C’ human protein. They discovered that this protein is able to stimulate neural stem cells to develop into functional neurons.
“This USC-led animal study could pave the way for a potential breakthrough in how we treat people who have experienced a stroke,” says Jim Koenig, a program director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke that funded the research. “If the therapy works in humans, it could markedly accelerate the recovery of these patients.”
Medical breakthrough
Berislav Zlokovic, senior study author and director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, said that his team was the first to successfully use the 3K3A-APC to develop neurons using human stem cells that were grafted into the brain of lab mice damaged from stroke.
“We showed that 3K3A-APC helps the grafted stem cells convert into neurons and make structural and functional connections with the host’s nervous system,” says Zlokovic, also a scientific founder of ZZ Biotech, a company devoted to developing therapeutics using variants of activated protein C. “No one in the stroke field has ever shown this, so I believe this is going to be the gold standard for future studies.”
Hope at the end of the tunnel
Zlokovic and his team injected human neural stem cells into damaged brain tissue from mice that were stroke induced, after which they inoculated an immunosuppressant cyclosporine with doses of 3K3A- APC within a period of 7 days.
A week in the life of mice is equivalent to several months in humans.
The stem cells successfully matured into working neurons and brain cells. The mice also treated with the special formula produced 16 times more human stem-cell neurons than those treated with a placebo.
“Functional deficit after five weeks of stroke were minimized, and the mice were almost back to normal in terms of motor and sensorimotor functions,” says Zlokovic. “Synapses formed between transplanted cells and host cells, so there is functional activation and cooperation of transplanted cells in the host circuitry.”
The researchers are hoping that this would revolutionize treatment and therapy for stroke patients and are now into further study to make use of this special compound to also treat spinal cord injuries.
Image Credit: Berislav Zlokovic, M.D., Ph.D., – University of Southern California
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