Forget Stem Cells! Switch Cell Types by Simply Changing the Messenger RNA

"What's new about this approach is that we didn't have to make the host cell pluripotent, that is the ability to develop into any of three major tissue types, we can directly convert from one cell type to another, without the intermediate step," explains Eberwine. _Physorg

This sounds much too easy to be true, so it probably won't be that simple. But something interesting is happening when you can turn a neuron into an astrocyte simply by injecting astrocytic mRNA into the neuron.

By simply flooding one cell type, a nerve cell, with the an abundance of a specific type of messenger RNA (mRNA) from another cell type, the investigators changed a neuron into an astrocyte-like cell, a star-shaped brain cell that helps to maintain the blood-brain barrier, regulates the chemical environment around cells, responds to injury, and releases regulatory substances.

James Eberwine, PhD, Elmer Holmes Bobst Professor of Pharmacology, Junhyong Kim, PhD, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Endowed Professor of Biology and first author Jai-Yoon Sul, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, and colleagues report their findings online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This approach offers the possibility for a new type of cell-based therapy for neurodegenerative and other diseases.

"In some ways, this is akin to what a virus does," explains Eberwine, "When a virus infects a cell it affects the host cell genome and the RNAs that it can make." By putting the RNA of one cell type, in the correct amounts, into another cell type, we were able to change its function."

"This research overturns the notion that all cells are permanently hardwired with little ability to change their physiology," notes Sul. _PO

This is just the beginning, of course. With better tools for manipulating the molecules of life inside living tissues and cells, the learning shifts into warp speed.

Soon, artificially created viruses will be performing these tasks like tiny nanobots, driving cell and tissue development in animals, plants, large-scale tissue vats, etc. It is time for biology to start getting a little respect.