New applications of haematopoietic stem cell transplantation for healing different . tissues and organs

Abstract

Several recent reports have highlighted the broad developmenta potential• of bone marrow-derived stem cells and the term "stem eel: plasticity" has been coined. Haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have been reported to produce not only all of the blood lineages, but also skeletal muscle, neurons, cardiac muscle, pulmonary epithelium, and liver I epithelium. The transdifferentiation of bone marrow derived cells into!

hepatic cells was first described in the rat, Followed by reports for the, mouse and also the human they were able to demonstrate that bone 1 marrow transplantation (BMT) could substitute for hepatocyte transplantation and correct the liver disease in this model It was furthermore demonstrated that prospectively isolated HSCs can transdifferentiate into hepatocytes and this suggested that the HSCs may indeed be plastic and be capable of producing both blood and hepatocytes)