From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Thu Jun 10 1999 - 15:06:49 MDT
Growing Organs In The Lab Moves A Step Closer
Growing complete organs in the laboratory, a longstanding dream of
biomedical science, came one key step closer to reality as a team of
Wisconsin scientists reported the discovery of a genetic mechanism that
gives organs their shape.
Writing in today's edition of Nature, a team of scientists from the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
describe a protein that regulates organ shape in the nematode Caenorhabditis
elegans.
The finding is important for two reasons, said Judith E. Kimble, an HHMI
investigator, UW-Madison professor of biochemistry and co-author of the
Nature report:
"One reason is that very little is known about how organs are shaped and
this is one of the first molecules that can be manipulated to change organ
shape at will," she said. "The second is that one of the mammalian
counterparts of this organ-controlling protein may be involved in the spread
of cancer cells."
Growing human organs for transplant in a laboratory dish is still a distant
prospect. But with the new discovery of an organ-shaping protein -- and the
gene that makes the protein -- a key step in the process of how nature
organizes an ambiguous mass of cells into a complex organ has now been
identified.
Studying the microscopic worm C. elegans, a workhorse of modern biology,
Kimble and Robert H. Blelloch, a doctoral and medical student in Kimble's
lab, found that a protein, dubbed GON-1, is responsible for shaping the
gonad, an intricate reproductive organ.
In early development, gonads form from a grouping of four specialized cells
that grow into an organ. They accomplish the task with the help of a
specialized "leader cell" whose job is to set up the polarity and shape of
the organ, Kimble said.
The leader cell is located at the tip of an arm of accumulating cells that
migrate into the U-shaped gonad organ. In the Wisconsin study, the making of
the GON-1 protein was found to be a key function of the leader cells that
directed the growth of the organ.
Although the new research was conducted in one organ in a microscopic worm,
Kimble said there is a good possibility that the same organ-orchestrating
mechanism is common to other organs in most other animals. And with the
advent of human stem cell technology in the past year, the chance that
scientists might one day be able to coax cells in a dish to grow into entire
organs is now enhanced.
Moreover, the discovery of the organ-shaping protein, Kimble added, yields
an important clue to how cancer may spread, since similar proteins may be
involved in shepherding cancerous cells from a tumor to other parts of the
body. When cancer spreads or metastasizes in the body, prospects for
recovery are grim.
Kimble said knowing how the protein works may enable the development of
inhibitors that could slow or stop the spread of cancerous cells in cancer
patients.
(Editor's Note: A high-resolution image of the nematode Caenorhabditis
elegans is available at this website.)
[Contact: Terry Devitt, Brian Mattmiller]
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
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