According to co-author Arun Sharma, Ph.D. of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University an Children’s Memorial Research Center, “Advances in the use of bone marrow stem cells taken from the patient open up new opportunities for exploring organ replacement therapies, especially for bladder regeneration”. However, use in a clinical setting is still years away.

Research published in the journal Stem Cells, has revealed a medical model for regenerating bladders using stem cells harvested from a patient’s own bone marrow. Focusing on bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells or MSCs taken from the patient, the findings demonstrate the plasticity of stem cells extracted from the bone marrow. They found that bone marrow MSCs bear phenotypic and physiological similarities with bladder smooth muscle cells which implies that MSCs can serve as an alternative cell source for bSMCs that can be potentially damaged.

Using a baboon bladder in conjunction with bone marrow MSCs to attempt partial bladder regeneration, they found that the mesenchymal stem cells actually retained the ability to populate a surgically grafted area while remaining active a full 10 weeks after surgery – they also retained the ability to express key smooth muscle cell markers which are essential for the continual expansion and contractile cycles of a normal, functioning bladder.

The use of the primate-based model sheds some valuable light into these processes as they may apply to humans, demonstrating the feasibility of MSCs in partial bladder regeneration. “The non-human primate bladder augmentation model established in this study will also further provide key pre-clinical data that may eventually be translated in a clinical setting.”

Read the original article here.

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