For the first time, scientists succeed in growing a human kidney: Full report – Times of India |

In what could be said to be a potential solution to the severe organ shortage, scientists have succeeded in developing a Humanized kidney inside pig. This is the first time that scientists have been able to grow a human organ inside another species.
According to the study, published in the scientific journal Cell Stem Cell, chimeric human and pig embryos were developed, consisting of human and pig cells. These embryos were implanted into surrogate pig mothers and developed kidneys that contained mostly…Human cells Which had a normal structure after 28 days of development. According to the lead researcher, there were also pig cells in the humanized body college But human cells dominated and constituted 60 to 70% of the total cells.
“Mut organs have been produced in mice, and mouse organs have been produced in mice, but previous attempts to transplant human organs into pigs have not been successful,” says lead researcher Liangxu Lai, from the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Wuyi University of Science told The Guardian. “Our approach improves the integration of human cells into recipient tissues and allows us to transplant human organs into pigs.” Pigs are an extremely attractive target for human organ development due to their similarity to humans in physiology and organ size, as well as in embryonic development. . The human kidney is one of the most transplanted solid organs worldwide and one of the oldest organs to appear during embryonic development. According to the US Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, 88,500 people are currently waiting for an organ transplant in the United States.

“It took us five years.”

“It took us five years,” study senior author Miguel Esteban, a principal investigator at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told CNN. “We have genetically modified the pig to create space for human cells to grow with less competition from pig cells, and we have also modified human cells to make them live in an environment that is not their natural environment,” Esteban told the media via. e-mail.
“The results suggest that it may be possible to generate a functional human kidney within newborn pigs, providing an attractive alternative to overcome the shortage of human organs needed for transplantation,” the researchers said.

Determinants

However, this study has several limitations. First, the overall proportion of degenerated pig embryos is high, and it will be necessary to evaluate whether this is partly related to chimerism or other aspects of the injection procedure. Second, the contribution of other lineages, including brain cells and germ cells, raises serious ethical concerns if pigs are conceived. Third, it is important to consider that organs are composed of multiple cell types including vascular cells that are essential for normal function and can cause rejection if any of them are of porcine origin.
Apart from the kidney, the other cells in the central nervous system were mostly pig cells. Previous attempts to produce such hybrids had failed because pig cells were superior to human cells. However, in the new study the embryo was genetically engineered to create a niche within the embryo that could be filled with human embryonic stem cells.
“Our findings demonstrate proof of principle that it is possible to generate a humanized rudimentary organ in organogenesis-impaired pigs, opening an exciting avenue for regenerative medicine and an artificial window to study human kidney development,” the researchers said.