Though, many overweight individual may think of shaping up, shading off that extra fat, researchers now seem to be getting fonder to a obese person, as they have extracted human stem cells from fat.
Ah! So, it means yet another important source of cells discovered! — yes, cells that are needed for bone marrow reconstituting in patients undergoing intensive radiation therapy for blood cancers.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have successfully not just isolated, but also cultured human hematopoietic stem cells from fat — or adipose tissues.
The researchers have detected a broad spectrum of blood-forming — or hematopoietic — cells among the cultured cells at varying differentiation stages.
The derived data indicate that hematopoietic stem cells are an integral part of normal adipose tissue. Thanks to a cell-sorting method known as flow cytometry.
Dr. Albert D. Donnenberg, Ph.D., professor and director of the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Laboratory, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute said,
We took cells from the stromal vascular fraction of normal adipose tissue and basically gave them bone marrow food to see what would happen. We were able to culture a variety of hematopoietic cells, including blood progenitor cells.
That, bone marrow grafts-contaminating tumor cells are the source of recurrent malignancies, have always been worries for doctors. But, this new finding can help patients — in need for bone marrow reconstitution – with their own hematopoietic cells, which are derived from a source other than their own defective bone marrow.
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