50 Million euro investment for LUMC spin-off RougeTx advances therapies for inherited bleeding disorders.
A reNEW Copenhagen team, led by Professor Joshua Brickman, demonstrate that by changing their diets, stem cells can rejuvenate and turn into ‘super stem cells’, which are more effective at making other cells, and perform exceedingly well when transplanted into a mouse embryo. This insight, published in EMBO Journal, could have many potential applications, including to improve the success of IVF treatment.
Professor Joshua Brickman, leader of the Brickman group at the Copenhagen node of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine has, with his team, created a new culture medium for culturing embryonic stem cells (ESCs). They have found that limiting the sugar metabolism of stem cells makes them fitter.
“In the same way that caloric restriction has been shown to have many long-term health benefits in humans, our research shows that the same principle applies to stem cells as well. This has implications for improving many stem cell-based therapies,” said Professor Joshua Brickman.
By switching glucose in the media to galactose, the cell’s primary source of energy generation is blocked, and the ESCs are restricted to a metabolic process known as oxidative phosphorylation, which metabolizes other nutrients in the cell, primarily lipids. This change in their nutrient source reprograms ESCs to an earlier stage of development, enhancing their ability to differentiate. By rejuvenating embryonic stem cells and improving their function in this way, this research could lead to further refine stem cell-based therapies.
“Our research illustrates that eliminating glucose metabolism in stem cells makes them into “super stem cells”, which has a wide variety of implications for improving stem cell-based therapies to treat many diseases that are prevalent today,” said Associate Investigator Robert Bone.
