http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/answer+decade+long+conundrum+fetal+ste
m+cells/4130783/story.html
Mom's the answer to 'decade-long conundrum' on fetal stem cells AFP January
19, 2011 U.S. researchers have discovered why fetal stem-cell transplants,
once considered a promising field for treating congenital defects before
birth, were failing: It was all Mother's fault.
But Mom's cells could also be the solution, a study on mice released
yesterday in the Journal of Clinical Investigation has found.
The mistake may have been that doctors were trying to match transplantable
bone-marrow stem cells to the fetus. The mother's immune system would
recognize the new cells as dangerous and reject them.
But if stem cells that match the mother were implanted, scientists saw a
nearly 100-per-cent success rate, the study found.
"This research is really exciting because it offers us a straightforward,
elegant solution that makes fetal stem-cell transplantation a reachable
goal," said senior author Tippi MacKenzie at the University of California,
San Francisco.
"We now, for the first time, have a viable strategy for treating congenital
stem-cell disorders before birth."
If the process works in humans, doctors could use it to treat a variety of
inherited immune disorders that can be detected through prenatal testing,
such as sickle-cell disease, thalassemia and chronic granulomatous disease.
The advance could erase what researchers call a "decade-long scientific
conundrum" that has caused many to lose interest in the field.
"The fact that fetal stem-cell transplantation has not been very successful
has been puzzling, especially given the widely accepted dogma that the
immature fetal immune system can adapt to tolerate foreign substances," said
coauthor Qizhi Tang of UCSF Transplantation Research Lab. "The surprising
finding ... is that the mother's immune system is to blame."
But when researchers transplanted blood stem cells that matched the mother,
the process was usually successful because the mother's immune system did
not recognize them as dangerous.
"As long as the transplanted stem cells are matched to the mother, it does
not seem to matter if they are matched to the fetus," said co-author Amar
Nijagal.
Researchers hope to look next at whether the process will work in humans.
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