Researchers have found a new kind of stem cell

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A new type of stem cell, with the potential to treat many diseases, has been isolated from amniotic fluid.
There is a great deal of research and public interest in stem cells, because they can self-renew and turn into a wide range of specific cells, like brain cells and heart muscle cells. This offers the potential to use the tissues thereby generated for repair in diseases like Alzheimer's disease and diabetes. However, there is controversy over using embryos as a source of stem cells and some research groups have focused on using adult stem cells, which are only found in certain tissues.

Now a new source of stem cells is reported, by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. They have isolated cells with the self-renewing property of stem cells from amniotic fluid samples. The amniotic fluid which surrounds the developing embryo is sampled during amniocentesis, which is a procedure for checking a fetus for abnormalities, so can be made readily available. The researchers have managed to differentiate their amniotic-fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells into bone, muscle, fat, blood vessel, nerve and liver cells in the laboratory. They can be grown in large quantities under conditions that do not require the usual 'feeder' cells. Nor do they produce tumors, which can occur with other types of stem cells. So far, then, AFS cells look like a promising approach to stem cell therapy.

Source
Nature Biotechnology January 2007