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Researchers have created placenta-based 3D organoids from human cells that can last more than a year, thus improving the current patterns of disease study during pregnancy and drug development.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have grown organoids from stem cells extracted from placenta tissue given at 6 to 9 weeks of age. The organoids reproduced the 3D structure of the placenta and could still function a year later. The scientists even verified that they were producing the right hormones through an over-the-counter pregnancy test that determined that the organoids were "pregnant".
The study, published in Nature, ran parallel to another group in Austria, whose own paper has been published just after the Cambridge group sent its research for publication.
"What she adds, in general, is the confirmation that we can have these self-organizing and self-renewing stem and progenitor cells in this system,"Martin Knöfler, a researcher at the Vienna Medical University, told me.
the Nature The authors refused to comment directly, but claim in the paper that their research is the first to demonstrate organelles residing more than one year in culture.
The development of organoids could be useful to companies that are testing new treatments without exposing their patients to experimental drugs. "The availability of cells for research is not an insignificant obstacle, and an organoid system allows a reliable supply of relevant cells under controlled conditions,Said John Stingl, badociate director of the Canadian company StemCell Technologies, which works with organoids. Stingl did not participate in the study.
It takes a lot of work for placental organoids to be fully useful in the industry. Stingl has said that although they look a lot like placentas at an early stage of pregnancy, they are not as effective at modeling a late pregnancy. "Further proof of concept studies will then be required to characterize the strengths and limitations of the system," he said.
Other projects also hope to provide model systems of the placenta. The Dutch company Mimetas is involved in an EU collaboration with the goal of developing placental tissue versions of organ-on-microch intended for use in diagnostic and disease models.
Pictures of Shutterstock
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