News Releases & Research Results Significantly increased chimerism of donor cells in a heterologous chimera

The results of research and development conducted by Project Professor Hiromitsu Nakauchi (also Professor of Stanford University) of the Division of Stem Cell Therapy, IMSUT Distinguished Professor Unit, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, and JSPS Research Fellow Toshiya Nishimura of the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo.

• A method (cell competitive niche) for significantly increasing the chimerism *1 of donor cells was developed by deleting the growth factor receptor of the host embryo in chimeric embryos *2 generated by transplanting pluripotent stem cells (donor cells *3) into pre-implantation embryos (host embryos), thereby successfully generating an organ mostly composed of donor cells.
  *1: Percentage of cells with different genetic backgrounds in an organism (chimera) composed of two or more cells with different genetic backgrounds.
  *2: An embryo composed of two or more cells with different genetic backgrounds.
  *3: Cells with an ability to differentiate into various tissues throughout the body, except for placental tissues (external embryonic tissues).
• The results of this research and development should apply to research on the generation of donor cell-derived organs in heterologous bodies.

This project was conducted with the support of the Advanced Research & Development Programs for Medical Innovation (LEAP) by AMED.

The results were published online in the American scientific journal Cell Stem Cell on December 29.

Nishimura T., et al. Generation of Functional Organs Using a Cell Competitive Niche in Intra-and Inter-species Rodent Chimeras Cell Stem Cell
DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2020.11.019