Week Number: 18
Seminar Date: Friday 8th December
Time: 12pm – 1pm
Module: Cell Biology S5030
stem cells part 2
Today we spoke about stem cells in vivo, now we will discuss stem cells in vitro i.e. embryonic stem cells.
Some vertebrates can regenerate limbs by responding to environmental cues. As humans our blood cells
regenerate, our cells are dying all the time so to not waste away we balance cell death with cell production.
Stem cells in vitro, we want to use stem cells to generate tissues for transplantation. There are some things we
can do with stem cells, our knowledge that cells can regenerate is old knowledge, now we are learning how
this happens i.e. level of proteins, genes.
Pluripotent stem cells – these can generate any cell in any part of the body.
1) Embryonic stem cells - derive from the inner cell mass of the human blastocyst.
2) Induced pluripotent stem cells - derived from adult cells.
Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) do not exist in vivo we have created them.
Culturing embryonic stem cells.
Photo of mouse ES cells in culture. We take an early embryo, dissect the cells from the inner cell mass
over 3 – 5 days. We then take those cells and culture them in adherent environmental circumstances.
Image shows colony of embryonic stem cells in a culture flask. From time to time, we have to passage the
cells, when they are growing the cells don’t know how to balance their growth, so we control that by
dividing the dishes to 2 or 4 etc, depending on the number of cells.
When culturing stem cells we use a coculture system to provide a supportive environment. In the photo
there are mouse fibroblasts to culture the production of embryonic stem cells.
Why might we want just embryonic stem cells in the culture for further application? Because we don’t
want it to be contaminated. We do not transfer embryonic stem cells directly into the patient.
Embryonic stems cells can generate any part of the body.
Embryonic mass à inject ES cells into recipient blastocyte à injected cells incorporated in inner cell mass
of host blastocyte à Blastocyte develops in foster mother into a healthy chimeric mouse.
Core set of transcriptional regulators
Fibroblasts can be reprogrammed to create induced pluripotent stem cells which can be used for
research and therapy.
This can be done by using retrophile factors to regulate and reprogram stem cells to pluripotent state. By
putting oct 4 sox 2 and myc into fibroblasts we have cells own expression in nanog which releases up
1
Seminar Date: Friday 8th December
Time: 12pm – 1pm
Module: Cell Biology S5030
stem cells part 2
Today we spoke about stem cells in vivo, now we will discuss stem cells in vitro i.e. embryonic stem cells.
Some vertebrates can regenerate limbs by responding to environmental cues. As humans our blood cells
regenerate, our cells are dying all the time so to not waste away we balance cell death with cell production.
Stem cells in vitro, we want to use stem cells to generate tissues for transplantation. There are some things we
can do with stem cells, our knowledge that cells can regenerate is old knowledge, now we are learning how
this happens i.e. level of proteins, genes.
Pluripotent stem cells – these can generate any cell in any part of the body.
1) Embryonic stem cells - derive from the inner cell mass of the human blastocyst.
2) Induced pluripotent stem cells - derived from adult cells.
Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) do not exist in vivo we have created them.
Culturing embryonic stem cells.
Photo of mouse ES cells in culture. We take an early embryo, dissect the cells from the inner cell mass
over 3 – 5 days. We then take those cells and culture them in adherent environmental circumstances.
Image shows colony of embryonic stem cells in a culture flask. From time to time, we have to passage the
cells, when they are growing the cells don’t know how to balance their growth, so we control that by
dividing the dishes to 2 or 4 etc, depending on the number of cells.
When culturing stem cells we use a coculture system to provide a supportive environment. In the photo
there are mouse fibroblasts to culture the production of embryonic stem cells.
Why might we want just embryonic stem cells in the culture for further application? Because we don’t
want it to be contaminated. We do not transfer embryonic stem cells directly into the patient.
Embryonic stems cells can generate any part of the body.
Embryonic mass à inject ES cells into recipient blastocyte à injected cells incorporated in inner cell mass
of host blastocyte à Blastocyte develops in foster mother into a healthy chimeric mouse.
Core set of transcriptional regulators
Fibroblasts can be reprogrammed to create induced pluripotent stem cells which can be used for
research and therapy.
This can be done by using retrophile factors to regulate and reprogram stem cells to pluripotent state. By
putting oct 4 sox 2 and myc into fibroblasts we have cells own expression in nanog which releases up
1
