A research team from the Council of Agriculture has used pig embryonic stem cells to produce nerve cells for successful treatment of Parkinson’s disease in lab rats.
The results of the team’s breakthrough—the first of its kind in the world—have been published in the international peer-reviewed journal Cellular Reprogramming.
The team’s success has garnered the attention of the academic world, and the next step is to engage in cooperation with medical organizations to begin human trials sometime in the future.
The COA’s Livestock Research Institute is one of the very few organizations in the world doing research on pig embryonic stem cells. In recent years, it has developed a unique technique for controlling stem cell growth factor, and for inducing stem cell differentiation into nerve cells.
Chen Lih-ren, head of the institute’s physiology division, said the team implanted stem cells differentiated for a period of 18 days into the rats’ damaged brains (to simulate Parkinson’s disease in humans) and the process was highly effective in terms of treatment.
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that often impairs the sufferer’s motor skills, speech and other functions. It is caused by the loss of brain cells that produce dopamine, chemical that helps direct muscle activity. Symptoms of the disease include trembling, stiffness, and loss of coordination. Currently, the main forms of treatment include the use of drugs to moderate the symptoms and a surgical procedure called deep brain stimulation.
The institute’s research team differentiated pig embryonic stem cells for different periods of time and compared the results. They discovered that stem cells differentiated for 18 days were the most effective. Three months after the rats received the implants of pig stem cells, tissue biopsies clearly revealed that new nerve cells had been produced.
Chen said the team’s research revealed a differentiation rate of nearly 90 percent in terms of using pig embryonic stem cells to produce nerve cells, much higher than the rates of 70 percent and 30 percent for monkey stem cells and mouse stem cells, respectively, documented in other international research. (SB)