The whole heart of a few stem cells
2006/11/24 Lakar Iraizoz, Oihane - Elhuyar Zientzia
The heart is a muscular organ formed by different types of tissues and muscles. Until now, it was thought that to create each type of cell of the heart, cells of an origin were needed. Two groups of researchers have investigated this and the result is very different. One of them has discovered a stem cell capable of producing most of the tissues of the heart, which produces two-thirds of the types of heart cells. The second group has investigated a stem cell that acts in total absence of the heart, producing two muscles of a part of the heart.
Stem cells are cells that have not yet been specialized. These researchers, for their part, are oriented to the creation of parts of the heart that express genes related to the cardiac muscle. Scientists suspect that these two stem cells may be related. If so, all kinds of heart cells would have their origin in a single stem cell, from which specializations are derived to form all tissues of the heart. However, it remains to be demonstrated.
Photo: From file
