A skin cell can not offer increase to a muscle cell but to skin cells only. Throughout early advancement, nevertheless, the cells in the embryo have the capacity to create all cell types of our body, including stem cells. Researchers at Helmholtz Munich have now made a new discovery: “We discovered out that in totipotent cells, the mother cells of stem cells, DNA duplication happens at a various rate compared to other more separated cells. Throughout the course of our lives, each time that a cell divides it generates an exact copy of its DNA so that the resulting daughter cells carry similar hereditary product. Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla is Head of the Stem Cell Center at Helmholtz Munich and leads the Institute for Epigenetics and Stem Cells.
DNA replication in mouse embryonic stem cells. Red: newly synthesized DNA. Credit: Helmholtz Zentrum München/ Tsunetoshi Nakatani
A skin cell can not give increase to a muscle cell however to skin cells just. During early development, nevertheless, the cells in the embryo have the capability to create all cell types of our body, including stem cells.
Totipotent cells have their own speed
Totipotent cells have many residential or commercial properties, however we do not understand all of them. Researchers at Helmholtz Munich have now made a new discovery: “We found out that in totipotent cells, the mother cells of stem cells, DNA replication occurs at a different pace compared to other more distinguished cells. It is much slower than in any other cell type we studied,” says Tsunetoshi Nakatani, first-author of the brand-new study.
DNA replication, in fact, is among the most essential biological processes. Throughout the course of our lives, each time that a cell divides it produces a specific copy of its DNA so that the resulting daughter cells carry similar genetic product. This essential concept allows devoted inheritance of our hereditary product.
The researchers found that the speed of DNA duplication is also low in totipotent-like cells, which researchers can culture in a petri meal. Tsunetoshi Nakatani adds: “This led us to the question: If we manage to alter the speed at which DNA replicates, can we enhance the reprogramming of cells into totipotent cells?”
Less speed, improved cellular reprogramming
In an exceptional experimental effort, the researchers observed certainly that slowing down the DNA replication speed– for instance by restricting the substrate that the cells use for DNA synthesis– increases reprogramming effectiveness, that is, the rate at which cells can transform to another cell type.
” This is incredible,” states Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, the leader of the research study. “Over the years, we have been studying totipotent cells in order to discover how nature has actually made them so exceptionally capable of creating all cell types of our bodies. This is a basic strategy of our research study towards regenerative medicine approaches. This brand-new principle is really simple, yet incredibly important and our company believe that it is a substantial advance for stem cell therapy.”
Referral: “DNA duplication fork speed underlies cell fate changes and promotes reprogramming” by Tsunetoshi Nakatani, Jiangwei Lin, Fei Ji, Andreas Ettinger, Julien Pontabry, Mikiko Tokoro, Luis Altamirano-Pacheco, Jonathan Fiorentino, Elmir Mahammadov, Yu Hatano, Capucine Van Rechem, Damayanti Chakraborty, Elias R. Ruiz-Morales, Paola Y. Arguello Pascualli, Antonio Scialdone, Kazuo Yamagata, Johnathan R. Whetstine, Ruslan I. Sadreyev and Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, 7 March 2022, Nature Genetics.DOI: 10.1038/ s41588-022-01023-0.
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla is Head of the Stem Cell Center at Helmholtz Munich and leads the Institute for Epigenetics and Stem Cells. She is likewise Professor for Stem Cell Biology at Ludwig-Maximilans-Universität München (LMU). Tsunetoshi Nakatani is the very first author of this research study and is a postdoc in Torres-Padillas group at Helmholtz Munich.