Modern transplantation, despite the rather good level of development is still driven into the frame to the shortage of organs for transplantation, because they almost always need to take from the living and consenting donors. A good solution would be to learn to grow organs “in vitro”. Significant advances in this field have been by biologists from the University of Texas who carried out the first in the history of lung transplantation grown in vitro.
A breakthrough in transplant medicine, writes the online edition of Science Translational Medicine. According to the report, the lungs were grown in the following way: as a “frame” was taken from the protein matrix of the pigs. The protein matrix is essentially a skeletal structure that supports the form and some features of the morphology of the cells and organs. From matrix removed all the cells and placed in nutrient solution. Then the matrix added pork undifferentiated cells. After 2 weeks the cells have populated the matrix and on its basis began to form lung tissue. But the most important is that in artificial light started to form a vascular network. According to the project Manager, Joan Nichols,
“At the moment, fairly easy to grow almost any fabric, but very difficult — permeable microvascular network capable of supporting tissue and physiological levels of pressure. It remains a major problem for tissue engineering.”
On the cultivation of “ready” on it took about a month. After that, the formed light (which was a few pieces) were transplanted into Guinea pigs. The animals were followed for 2 weeks and none of them began the process of tissue rejection. Moreover, the level of oxygenation of the blood was in the normal range. Now scientists aim to conduct longer experiments, if successful, which it will be possible to talk about early experiences with people.
First performed a lung transplant “in vitro”
Vladimir Kuznetsov