A number of Chinese scientists have succeeded in growing kidneys containing human cells in pig embryos. This is the first discovery in the world that could help overcome the shortage of organ donors.
But the findings published Thursday in the journal Cell Stem Cell raise ethical concerns, especially because some human cells were also found in pig brains, experts said.
Researchers at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health focused research on kidneys, because kidneys are the most frequently transplanted organs in human medicine.
“Mouse organs have been produced in mice, but previous attempts to grow human organs in pigs were unsuccessful,” said senior author Liangxue Lai in a statement.
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“Our approach improves the integration of human cells into the recipient tissue and allows us to grow human organs in pigs.”
The approach is a different approach to recent important breakthroughs that occurred in the United States, where genetically modified pig kidneys and even hearts have been placed inside human bodies.
The new research paper “describes pioneering steps in a new approach to organ biotechnology using pigs as incubators to grow and culture human organs,” said Dusko Ilic, a professor of stem cell science at King’s College London who was not involved in the research.
Ilic warns there will be challenges to turning the experiment into a viable solution, but “nevertheless, this interesting strategy requires further exploration.”
Changing Genes
The main challenge in trying to create such a hybrid is that pig cells can outperform human cells.
To overcome this obstacle, the team used CRISPR gene editing to delete two genes important for kidney formation in pig embryos, creating what is called a “niche.”
They then added specially prepared human pluripotent stem cells – that is, cells that have the potential to develop into any type of cell – to fill the niche.
Before implanting embryos in sows, they grow them in test tubes containing substances that provide nutrition to human and pig cells.
In total, they transferred 1,820 embryos into 13 surrogate mothers. The pregnancy was terminated at 25 and 28 days to evaluate how the experiment worked.
Five embryos selected for analysis were found to have normally functioning kidneys appropriate to their stage of development. These embryos contain about 50 to 60% human cells.
“We found that if you create a niche in a pig embryo, then human cells will naturally fit into that space,” said study co-author Zhen Dai.
“We saw very few human nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and no human cells in the genital tract.”
However, Darius Widera, a professor of stem cell biology at the University of Reading, said the presence of human cells in pig brains was a cause for concern.
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“While this approach is a clear milestone and the first successful attempt to grow an entire organ containing human cells in a pig, the proportion of human cells in the resulting kidney is still not high enough,” he said.
In the long term, the research team wants to optimize the technology for use in human transplantation. However, they admitted that the technology was actually still not ready.
The main limitation is that the kidneys contain blood vessel cells that originate from pigs, and could trigger rejection if transplanted into humans.
However, the team is already working on developing other human organs in pigs, such as the heart and pancreas. [em/rs]
2023-09-08 08:23:48
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