Differentiation Potential of Adult Rat Stem Cells

描述(由申请人提供)：人们对探索来自骨髓的成体干细胞的潜在治疗用途越来越感兴趣。然而，目前还不清楚哪些干细胞群体或细胞表型最适合于有效地治疗可能适用于这种治疗方法的各种疾病。关于成人骨髓干细胞的基本生物学以及它们是否会提供修复受损组织和改善疾病过程的细胞来源的基本信息很少。因此，我们提出了一系列实验来检验中心假设，即纯化的成年大鼠骨髓来源干细胞亚群在修复受损的心脏和肺组织方面是有效的。为了直接检验这一假说，已经制定了三个具体目标： 具体目标： 1.建立普遍表达绿色荧光蛋白(GFP)的转基因雄性大鼠骨髓中纯化的成体干细胞亚群的形态和分子图谱。 2.为了确定干细胞亚群在体外共培养实验中的分化潜能，我们最近开发了来自心脏和肺组织的正常和损伤的原代细胞。 3.确定干细胞亚群在野百合碱诱导的大鼠肺动脉高压模型中的植入和分化潜能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is increasing interest in exploring the potential therapeutic uses of adult stem cells from bone marrow. Currently, however, it is not understood which stem cell populations or cellular phenotypes are best suited to effectively treat a variety of diseases that may be amenable to such a therapeutic approach. There is very little fundamental information on the basic biology of adult bone marrow stem cells and whether or not they will provide a source of cells that can repair damaged tissues and ameliorate a disease process. Thus, we have proposed a series of experiments to test the central hypothesis that purified sub-populations of adult rat bone marrow-derived stem cells are effective in repairing injured cardiac and pulmonary tissues. Three specific aims have been developed to directly test the hypothesis: Specific Aim: 1. To establish the morphologic and molecular profiles of purified adult stem cell sub-populations from the bone marrow of male transgenic rats that ubiquitously express green fluorescent protein (GFP). 2. To determine the differentiation potential of the stem cell sub-populations in ex vivo co-culture assays we have recently developed with normal and injured primary cells from cardiac and pulmonary tissues. 3. To determine the engraftment and differentiation potential of the stem cell sub-populations in a rat model of monocrotaline-induced pulmonary hypertension.