<i>In Pursuit</i> of Porcine Pluripotent Stem Cells for Autologous Cell Therapy

Abstract

Treatments to repair the human heart following regenerative diseases remain a challenge for medical science. Unlike lower vertebrate species the human heart lacks a regenerative pathway meaning that research has to be focused on cell transplantation. Porcines (Sus scrofa) are excellent models for cardiovascular disease and pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) generated from porcines will provide important clinical insights for cardiac cell therapy. This could open a new avenue of research into degenerative conditions as porcine is a more effective human proxy to work with. However, bona fide PSCs are currently available only in rodents (mouse, rat) and primates (monkey, human). Attempts to derive pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) from porcine have been going on for more than two decades with slow progress. Despite the fact that the porcine stem cells are under increasing glare of publicity due to milestone achievements in this area of research. Advances in stem cell technology, especially the genetic engineering, innovative cell culturing and induced pluripotency to generate stem cells has dramatically revolutionized the basic and applied investigations and applications of porcine stem cells. This review attempts to summarize the major signaling pathways involved in maintenance of pluripotency and the state of the art conceptual and technical progress for generating bona fide porcine PSCs.

Inhibition of FGF Signalling Pathway Augments the Expression of Pluripotency and Trophoblast Lineage Marker Genes in Porcine Parthenogenetic Blastocyst

“…This is not in agreement with the previous findings (Verma et al. ). Researchers had claimed that blocking FGF/MEK signalling increased the proportion of NANOG‐ expressing cells in the ICMs of porcine embryos (Verma et al.…”

“…Researchers had claimed that blocking FGF/MEK signalling increased the proportion of NANOG‐ expressing cells in the ICMs of porcine embryos (Verma et al. ). In the porcine early embryo development, up to day 7–8 in vitro culture, expression of NANOG mRNA and protein was not detected in in vitro ‐ and in vivo ‐produced porcine blastocyst (Kuijk et al.…”

Stem Cell Dynamics and Cytoceuticals for Therapeutics and Toxicity Screening: A Review

“…In their study on the extent to which programmed ne-An improved understanding of the dynamics of pluripotent stem cells which started with embryonic stem cells (ESCs) reported to have been derived from human blastocyst [7] and progressed to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) has taken place mostly in the last twenty five years. Studying the dynamics of ESCs [8] revealed the capability of these cells to effect repair of cells and tissues of the animal body (see Review by [9,10]) as well as a capability to reversing the temporal changes associated with tissues and organs [11] see Review [12] to a large extent. Similarly, iPSCs [8,13,14] have remained a recent biotechnology process from which human somatic cells [15] and body tissues have been produced including functional cardiomyocytes [16], hematopoietic and endothelial tissues [17], spinal muscular tissue [18], skin [13], liver and kidney [19] among many others.…”

“…According to Verma, et al [10], genetic engineering, innovative cell culturing and induced pluripotency which generate various types of stem cells now make it possible to apply porcine stem cells for cardiac cell therapy and for innovative research. Moreover, the ready availability of stem cells for transplantation purposes encourages their application for clinical purposes.…”