Stem Cell Therapy Reviving Hopes For Arthritis Patients By Producing Cartilage

Stem Cell Therapy Reviving Hopes For Arthritis Patients By Producing Cartilage

Adult stem cells have been in use for different biomedical researchers and novel therapeutic applications for a range of diseases since long. Once again, they prove to be a useful medical tool for debilitating conditions as Osteoarthritis. Since researchers have created balanced joint cartilage using adult stem cells, we can expect to get rid of the excruciating joint pain very soon with an effective transplant process. The researchers at the University and University Hospital of Basel created the liquid component known as cartilage applying certain molecular techniques. The process of the tissue development took place during embryonic cartilage formation. Every one of us could have an elaborate view on this report from the scientific journal of PNAS.
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• Stem Cell Therapy For Knees to Relieve Osteoarthritis

What Osteoarthritis Is And How Does It Affect Us?

As we all know, osteoarthritis is a degenerative condition of the joints, which causes the destruction of the natural cartilage, weakening of bone density and inflammation. As per medical reports, maximum cases of osteoarthritis result in joint pain restricting the ability to perform normal activities, while affecting the normal quality of life. Until today, so many techniques and medical interventions have proved ineffective in healing the articular cartilage.
In addition to this, mesenchymal stem cell-based therapies have been showing promising hopes to advance cartilage repair. Despite some progressive advancement in the pre-clinical trials, these cell-based therapies are yet to get approval for use in clinical settings. Along with this, other new techniques are on the way to offer novel therapeutic uses for this condition. MSC-based extracellular compounds, improved CRISPR CAS 9 gene editing tools, and miRNAs are devised for the development of new strategies for OA.
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• Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy to Increase the Survival Rate in HLHS

While these are under process, we have another new entrant as a form of stem cell-based cartilage to alleviate our severities.

The Hypothesis Behind The Cartilage Formation

The skeletal tissue regeneration requires specific mesenchymal or stromal cells from the bone marrow-derived adult stem cells. The adult stem cells pass through a transformation stage, where they first become cartilage, and bone tissues later. It is a natural and an automatic process of the stem cells to turn into cartilage, and then enter the ‘hypertrophic’ state. In this specific state, it spontaneously becomes bone tissues. The same state follows during the cartilaginous tissues after a fracture.

How It Works

The research team at The University of and University Hospital of Basel showed that cartilage formation is possible using mesenchymal stem cells. However, the process must adhere to the embryonic development of articular cartilage under the influence of certain molecular processes. In order to achieve the cartilage formation, the technique must restrict the signaling pathway of a certain protein Bone Morphogenetic Protein or BMP.

Further, the scientists highlighted the influence of two highly BMP receptor inhibitors in the whole process. When cultured in a microfluid platform, it is possible for them to form cartilage by blocking the effects of the inhibitors. In addition to this, with a blockage for a short span of time, the cartilage can be developed both in a mouse and the lab models.

Cells Based Models

This discovery is a good sign in the way of disease modeling. At the same time, it opens up new and advanced perspectives for the regenerative medicines and therapies for cartilage formation. Thereby, it focuses on the methods to manipulate tissue engineering for the development of any organ tissue during embryonic cartilage formation.

Last of all, using a certain molecular process, we can control the movement of progenitor and adult stem cells.

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