In this blog post, learn about the process of tissue regeneration using stem cells!
It’s not uncommon to see advertisements for cartilage stem cell therapy on the streets these days. Some people may have wondered how stem cells can be used to treat cartilage, thinking that stem cells are old news. However, stem cells are still being actively researched by many scientists and are gaining popularity in the field of regenerating artificial organs such as skin and cartilage. Human organ regeneration, which was thought to be possible in the distant future, is now being achieved through stem cells, and in some fields, it has already advanced from experimental research to actual clinical treatment. Let’s take a look at some of the stem cell treatments that are currently being applied in practice, specifically cartilage regeneration.
First, let’s take a look at how stem cells are being used to regenerate artificial organs. Stem cells are the backbone of tissue engineering. Tissue engineering is the study of artificially creating living tissue in an in vitro environment and covers everything related to the body, from bone and skin to internal organs. Tissue engineering can be broken down into three main components: scaffolds, stem cells, and growth factors. Tissue engineering sounds great and complicated because it involves the creation of human organs, but what you really need is the right combination of these three elements. How do these three factors come together to form a human organ?
Tissue is a collection of many cells with specific functions, which is why the cells in bone, skin, cartilage, and other tissues that fulfill different roles look and do different things. What’s amazing is that these differently shaped and differently behaved cells started out as the same – they’re siblings with the same root. The root is the stem cell, which has the potential to grow into many different cells, so in tissue engineering, we differentiate them into specific cells to create the tissue we want. The question we need to think about is how to differentiate the stem cells into the cells we want. Let’s say the stem cell is a baby and we want to grow it into a child who loves books.
The first thing you need to grow a baby is a room for it to grow in. Cells need a room in the same way. The room that cells naturally grow in is inside the human body, but since we need to grow stem cells in an artificial, in vitro environment, we need to give them a room that is similar enough to their original room that they feel like it’s their own, even if they’re growing outside. This room is the scaffold. It’s important to note that different tissues in the body have different environments for cells to grow in, so we need to provide different scaffolds for different cells. For example, chondrocytes were originally attached to bones, so they grew in a relatively hard environment, whereas skin cells grew on muscle tissue, so they grew in a relatively soft environment. So, just like if you want to raise a child who loves books, you’d decorate a room with lots of books, you need to create the right environment for the cells you want to differentiate.
So, if you give them a special room, will they really grow up to be what you want them to be? There’s one more thing needed here. That is the external stimuli given to the baby. Just like a mother encourages her baby to read by constantly cooing at her, cells need inducers, or growth factors. Growth factors are actually hormones that your body releases to guide stem cells as they differentiate. By adding the growth factor, we’re allowing the stem cells to recognize the hormone and differentiate into the specific cells we want them to become, even outside of the body.
Now, let’s go back to cartilage regeneration therapy. Cartilage is the elastic, cushioning material between bones that reduces friction. It’s made up of chondrocytes and the matrix they produce. The matrix contains water and substances like collagen and hyaluronic acid, which make it a very elastic gel. This cartilage wears down with use, which is why most people suffer from painful knee cartilage as they age. Why is it that skin or bone can repair itself when broken, but cartilage just wears out? It’s because cartilage doesn’t have blood vessels running through it. In the case of skin or bone, when something goes wrong, stem cells living in the bone marrow travel through the blood vessels to form new tissue at the site of the abnormality. This can’t happen in cartilage, which has no blood vessels, which is why cartilage ages with age. Scientists have found a way to use stem cells to regenerate cartilage. First, stem cells are harvested from the bone marrow. The stem cells that grow in the bone marrow have the ability to differentiate into bone, skin, and cartilage. We grow the stem cells by creating a support that is similar to the environment in the body where chondrocytes grow, and inject growth factors into it to induce the stem cells to become chondrocytes. Once these chondrocytes secrete substances such as collagen and hyaluronic acid to form a matrix, we can transplant the formed chondrocytes and matrix back into the body to regenerate cartilage as if it were their own.
So far, we’ve learned about the process of regenerating tissue using stem cells. This field is currently being widely researched because it uses the body’s own stem cells and does not trigger any immune response, and it is expected that in the near future, it will be possible to regenerate not only cartilage but also more complex organs.
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