Transforming skin cells into cartilage
Monday, January 17, 2011 - 17:20
in Biology & Nature
In new research, scientists in Japan used fibroblasts isolated from adult mouse skin, and expressed proteins used to induce pluripotency along with a factor that promotes a chondrocyte fate. The resulting cells resembled chondrocytes and produced cartilage when injected into mice. This may be an important step toward a therapy that will allow the repair of cartilage injury using a patient's own skin cells.