![]() “We needed to know how these myocytes with the rainbow colors were going to behave in a highly controlled environment, which is the dish. Davis explains the advantages of both models. The experiments were conducted in rats and in laboratory dishes. We saw conclusively that some percentage of the graft is due to proliferation.” Rainbow Cells Proliferate In Vivo But if you see a cluster of red or a cluster of blue, that means those cells all came from the original single-colored cell. If the cells didn’t proliferate, you would just see red, blue, and green all by itself. We can inject a mixture of individually colored cells into a rat heart. “That’s why we built the lines of rainbow cells. “There’s not a lot of tools out there to see if these cells are growing, dividing, and proliferating,” says Davis. Just as importantly, the first generation of color-coded cells pass their unique fluorescence barcode on to their progeny, enabling lineage tracing of individual cells. When activated, those genes turn on proteins that become fluorescent tracers, which in turn, make it possible to follow individual cells as they move and divide in laboratory environments. As a postdoc in the Davis and Sniadecki labs, El-Nachef engineered human stem cells embedded with color-coding genes found naturally in jellyfish, sea anemones, and coral. The technology used in the investigation was developed by the paper’s lead author, Danny El-Nachef, PhD, now a senior scientist as Sana Biotechnology. Clonally expanding iPSCs from the same parental origin are apparent as clusters of same-colored cells. Rainbow iPSCs three days after inducing the rainbow labeling. Rainbow reporter technology gives researchers like Murry new ways to better understand how cell therapy works – and how to improve it. Charles Murry demonstrated that stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes could be used to regenerate heart tissue in non-human primates by forming grafts of healthy heart muscle cells, preventing the scarring that inhibits heart functioning after heart attacks while promoting significant recovery. In 2018, a study led by ISCRM Director Dr. The findings come at an exciting time for heart research. The study was co-led by ISCRM faculty members Jen Davis, PhD, Associate Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology and Bioengineering and Nate Sniadecki, PhD, Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Now, a new paper published in the journal Circulation details the use of rainbow cell technology to demonstrate that injected cells do proliferate, a finding that could help researchers enhance the efficacy of cell therapy for heart disease and perhaps conditions impacting other organs in the human body. Enhancing the Efficacy of Cell Therapy Jen Davis (L) and Nate Sniadeck (R) led the research published in the journal Circulation Uncertainty lingers, however, because the tools used to examine the grafts have so far lacked the precision to deliver a definitive verdict. Another theory is that engrafted cardiomyocytes undergo hypertrophy and grow bigger and stronger. One theory is that it is driven primarily by proliferation – in other words, transplanted cardiomyocytes divide and replicate, creating large colonies of new muscle cells. ![]() One set of questions being explored by ISCRM researchers centers on how cell therapy helps damaged hearts become remuscularized. However, key questions about this cutting-edge treatment remain. One emerging approach involves regenerating damaged or lost heart tissue by engrafting stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells) to help prevent heart failure in heart attack patients. At the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM), researchers in multiple labs are using stem cell technology to pioneer novel approaches to treating heart disease in ways that address the root causes of this chronic disease, rather than manage its symptoms. Over the last several years, cell therapy has emerged as an increasingly promising treatment for the world’s leading cause of death: heart disease. ![]() Image of rainbow reporter cardiomyocytes six weeks after engraftment
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