Simplified Sciences - Human cells in monkey embryos

Researchers have grown human cells in monkey embryos with the aim of understanding more about how cells develop and communicate with each other. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte at the Salk Institute in California and his colleagues have produced what are known as human-monkey chimeras, with human stem cells – special cells that have the ability to develop into many different cell types – inserted in macaque embryos in petri dishes in the lab. However, some ethicists have raised concerns, saying this type of work “poses significant ethical and legal challenges”. Chimeras are organisms whose cells come from two or more individuals. In humans, chimerism can naturally occur following organ transplants, where cells from that organ start growing in other parts of the body. Izpisua Belmonte says the team’s work could pave the way in addressing the severe shortage in transplantable organs, as well as help us understand more about early human development, disease progression and ageing. “These chimeric approaches could be really very useful for advancing biomedical research not just at the very earliest stage of life, but also the latest stage of life,” he said. In 2017, Izpisua Belmonte and his colleagues created the first human-pig chimera, where they incorporated human cells into early-stage pig tissue but found that human cells in this environment had poor molecular communication. So the team decided to investigate lab-grown chimeras using a more closely related species: macaques. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674( 21)00305-6?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867421003056%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Category