Development of Method to Determine Ethnic Background of the Stem Cells
The stem cell science has achieved an enormous progress and has a lot of potentials for treatment of variety of diseases and disorders. Stem cells can be used to replace or restore the damaged tissues but the overall success has been shown to greatly depend on ethnic background of the receiver and the donor of stem cells, just like in case or organ donor and receiver. Thus development of method to determine the ethnic background of stem cells by the scientists and researchers of The Scripps Research is major step forward in the stem cell science.
Accessibility to genetically different cell lines will significantly improve the safety and efficacy of transplantation of the tissues and certain medications as well as the overall success of stem cell treatment. The scientists at The Scripps Research have developed an easy and inexpensive method called the SNS genotyping to determine the ethnic background of the donors of stem cells. Asking the donors about their ethnic origin does not provide a reliable information because many people have an ancestor with a different genetic background without being aware of it. In addition, the researchers have also discovered that a country of origin does not make the determination of ethnic background any easier.
The researchers have used 47 samples of human embryonic stem cells that were gathered from laboratories from all over the world and 5 iPS cells. They have come to the conclusion that the majority of samples had a Caucasian and East Asian ethnic background and that only few were of African origin. For that reason the scientists have developed a completely new cell line of Yoruba origin, a western African ethnic group.
The research has been published in the journal Nature Methods in January 2010 and was financed by National Institutes of Health, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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