By Kevin E. Noonan --
After a thorough review by a peer-review panel of the scientific data presented in a report published in its pages five years ago, the journal Nature announced on June 14, 2007 that, although representation of the data in one figure was flawed, the underlying conclusions were scientifically valid. These conclusions were accompanied this week by a Corrigendum (or correction) published in the journal by the reports' authors, identifying and acknowledging the mistakes but reasserting their conclusion that multipotent adult progenitor cells, or MAPCs, could be found in mouse bone marrow (see Jiang et al., "Pluripotency of mesenchymal stem cells derived from adult marrow").
The report comes as a sort of vindication for Dr. Catherine Verfaillie, the principal investigator in the study who is now at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Dr. Verfaille has maintained all along that the basic conclusions of the work are sound, but has also acknowledged that there were flaws in how the paper was published (see "Limitations on The Usefulness of Adult Stem Cells").
Specifically, the paper identifies as unreliable one figure (Figure 1b), a fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) plot. This data was unreliable, according to the Corrigendum, because the intensity of staining was 10-fold lower than expected, and the proper controls were not included. However, the authors provide a corrected Figure, and affirmatively state that they have been able to reproduce the work and obtain a reliable result.
These events may breathe additional life into efforts to develop pluripotent human stem cells from adult tissues. One important reason that human embryonic stem cells have remained a primary focus of stem cell research even in the face of governmental efforts to suppress (or at least limit) their use for religious and "moral" reasons, is that stem cells from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst have been the only truly pluripotent cells known. The Verfaille work, if truly reproducible, provides another, less controversial avenue for developing human pluripotent stem cells. This line of investigation has the additional advantages that MAPCs could be derived from a patient's own tissues, and thus avoid potential immunological complications to using human stem cells therapeutically. Since the Bush administration is steadfast (or just plain stubborn) in its opposition to human embryonic stem cells (having used two of its only three vetoes against bills that would expand the scope of human ES cell lines approved for federally-funded research), any chance that stem cell science will advance in the U.S. is dependent on finding other sources. These include alternative funding sources, such as the California initiative (see "Stem Cells a Go! in California") and other states and private foundations. They once again include alternative stem cell sources, such as Dr. Verfaille's MAPCs. Perhaps these developments will blunt the negative effects that federal funding restrictions have had on the progress of stem cell science in this country. Such an outcome would be beneficial both to science and the economy, and may help to reverse the "stem cell brain drain" the Bush Administration's policies have had over the past seven years.
For additional information on this and related topics, please see:
- "Can Fibroblasts Solve The Problems with Human Embryonic Stem Cells?" June 15, 2007
- "Massachusetts to Invest $1 Billion on Medical and Science Research," May 10, 2007
- "It's Time to Stop the Hypocrisy over Stem Cell Patents - Part II," April 26, 2007
- "It's Time to Stop the Hypocrisy over Stem Cell Patents - Part I," April 17, 2007
- "WARF Stem Cell Patent Claims Rejected in Re-examination," April 3, 2007
- "NIH Chief Dissents on Federal Stem Cell Funding Ban," March 20, 2007
- "Stem Cells a Go! in California," February 28, 2007
- "Limitations on the Usefulness of Adult Stem Cells," February, 28, 2007
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