This week’s online Nature presents two publications from two independent teams of researchers based at the University of Cambridge and Oxford. The two teams simultaneously discovered a new kind of embryonic stem cell in mice that is very similar to human embryonic stem cells.
Up until now human and mice embryonic stem cells looked different under the microscope and behaved in very diverse ways. The researchers found that when mouse stem cells are derived from the innermost cell layer (epiblast) of the one week old rodent embryo, rather than from the more usual early blastocyst stage (3-4 days after conception), they actually resembled human embryonic stem cells and had many of the same properties.
Professor Roger Pedersen (Head of the Cambridge team) said that epiblast stem cells constitute the missing link between mouse and human embryonic stem cells.
The discovery will provide better insight into stem cell development and help the derivation of stem cells in other species, including livestock and disease-prone mice used in research, thereby providing better models for researchers which will lead toward potential therapies.
More details on the story can be found on Yahoo! News
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