Umbilical cord links a baby to the mother that carries nutrients and gases for the growth of baby. Earlier a huge portion of the baby cord was used to be discarded and remaining part was used to dry off. Now as it has been understood that the umbilical cord blood stem cells are highly effective as well as useful to cure several severe diseases, doctors have started storing them. The cord is rich in two types of cells that are hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal cells. A research was done recently in Tampa on the effectiveness of the mesenchymal cells.
The study showed that such type of cells can also be used in the treatment of lupus nephritis; it was found when these cells were transplanted into the systemic lupus erythematosus or SLE mouse models. Systemic lupus erythematosus is indeed a disease with numerous aberrations in immune system and lupus nephritis found under clinical conditions. Lupus nephritis is actually a major cause of increasing death rate among SLE patients. The study was done by Taiwanese scientists whose results also have been published online in the Cell Transplantation publication.
The author of this online publication Dr. Oscar K. Lee is working in Medicine schools of National University of Yang -Ming. Dr Oscar told that mesenchymal cells possess the ability to modify the immune system which can alternate the immune responses. It will be possible by restricting the infection and also function of the cells, both mature and immature ones. These umbilical derived mesenchymal cells are now being explored to search for the effectiveness of treatments by these cells in the treatment of lupus nephritis. The study involved cord blood transplant of stem cells in the mice infused with some immune disorders that are exactly matching the SLE in the human beings.
Dr. Lee further notified some crucial results of their research. These include- umbilical mesenchymal cord cells interrupted the renal damage. It resulted into increase in the changes of renal pathology and protienuria development. Proteinruia is in actual the stage of presence of high level of protein serum in urine that shows the danger sign of renal deterioration. It is not only this; the level of certain antibodies was also reduced. Researchers found a big positive difference in the survival rate of mice that were provided treatment at the age of two months and those which were treated at the age of six months. The whole research led the scientists to conclude that uMSCs can be very effective.
The canvassers also concluded that the use of mesenchymal stem cells taken from allergenic donor that is those obtained from others were compatible as compared to those that are autologous donors obtained from own body. It was a major triumph by the scientists. The study provided a complete solution for the auto immune rejection problems. It would be used for the further exploration of using these umbilical cord stem cells against several diseases especially Lupus nephritis. Although stem cells are found in the placenta but due to controversy linked to this, scientists are more involved in doing research on stem cells extracted from baby cord blood.