• Question: What chemicals do you use to attract the stem cells to the place you want them to go?

    Asked by billy to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 22 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 17 Mar 2011:

      Hi billy,
      It depends on what where we want them to go, some examples of chemicals that we use are things called growth factors like Fibroblast Growth Factor, Insulin like growth factor, transferrin, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, activin A. Lots of these are similar in stucture but make a big difference to what they make the cells do!

    • Photo: Emma King

      Emma King answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      Hi billy, I don’t work in the lab so I’m afraid I don’t know what chemicals are used – I’m sure some of the others will answer you though.
      Emma

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      Hi billy, good question. I’m glad you read the profile and hope that was interesting!
      There are loads of chemicals that can attract the stem cells to move towards them and the one we used is call TNF-a. How it works is this. The stem cells have what we call ‘receptors’ on their surface – you can imagine that they are like the sensors (the ears, nose, eyes) of the cell, so when the stem cells sense certain chemical signals, they respond. The chemicals that make them move work because the receptors detect them and send a signal to the nucleus where the DNA is and the cell then starts making things that are like fibres inside the cell that help it move.

    • Photo: Jayne Charnock

      Jayne Charnock answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      ace question billy

      we use different ‘factors’. These are signals that the cells respond to and migrate towards. They are called chemoattractants. In our lab we mostly use factors such as Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) which is a signal protein produced by cells that stimulates blood vessel formation and also attracts endothelial progenitor cells and Monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) which attracts immune cells.

      There are lots more

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