豬猴嵌合體首次出現(xiàn)

豬猴嵌合體首次出現(xiàn)

Pigs engineered to have a small amount of monkey cells have been brought to full term and were even born alive, surviving for a few days after birth. Although the piglets died, it is claimed the experiment - performed in China - marks a major milestone for the future of lab-grown organs.

被改造成含有少量猴細胞的豬足月生產，甚至出生時存活了幾天。盡管這些小豬都死了，但據(jù)稱，這項在中國進行的實驗是未來實驗室培養(yǎng)器官的一個重要里程碑。

This is the first report of full-term pig-monkey chimeras, Tang Hai of the State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology in Beijing told New Scientist.

北京干細胞與生殖生物學國家重點實驗室的唐海告訴《新科學家》:“這是第一份足月期豬猴嵌合體的報告。”

The research is part of an ongoing effort to develop animals - whether they are sheep or pigs - that can grow human organs we could then harvest for transplants, a process called xenogeneic organogenesis.

這項研究是正在進行的培育動物的努力的一部分，無論它們是羊還是豬，都可以培育出人類器官，然后我們可以收獲這些器官用于移植，這個過程被稱為異種器官形成。

Research has been done on both pig and sheep embryos with transplanted human stem cells; in both cases, the embryos continued to develop until the experiment was deliberately terminated.

已經用移植的人類干細胞對豬和羊的胚胎進行了研究;在這兩種情況下，胚胎繼續(xù)發(fā)育，直到實驗被人為終止。

That's because, due to ethical concerns, these chimeras - organisms that incorporate the genetic material of another species - cannot be cultivated or studied in the later stages of embryonic development. Some scientists worry that some of the human stem cells could end up in other parts of the animal or even in its brain, with unintended consequences.

這是因為，出于倫理上的考慮，這些嵌合體——包含其他物種的遺傳物質的有機體——不能在胚胎發(fā)育的后期培育或研究。一些科學家擔心，一些人類干細胞可能最終會進入動物的其他部位，甚至是大腦，帶來意想不到的后果。

For that reason, in this experiment the team used stem cells from crab-eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis). These were imbued with fluorescent proteins so that they would glow under fluorescent light, and derived to produce fluorescing embryonic cells.

因此，在這項實驗中，研究小組使用了來自食蟹獼猴的干細胞。它們被注入了熒光蛋白，這樣它們就能在熒光燈下發(fā)光，并衍生出能產生熒光的胚胎細胞。

These cells were then injected into over 4,000 five-day-old pig embryos fertilised using IVF; the modified pig embryos were subsequently implanted into sows.

這些細胞隨后被注射到4000多只5天大的試管嬰兒胚胎中;改良后的豬胚胎隨后被植入母豬體內。

This fiddly and painstaking work produced just 10 piglets that made it to full term and were born alive. And only two of these were chimeric, with between one in 1,000 and one in 10,000 functional monkey cells to pig cells.

這項精細而艱苦的工作只生產了10頭足月出生的小豬。其中只有兩個是嵌合的，在1000個猴子細胞和10000個豬細胞中各有一個。

The monkey cells had migrated to the heart, liver, lungs, spleen and skin of the piglet hosts, but were not found in other organs, such as testes and ovaries, due to the low rate of chimerism, the researchers said.

研究人員說，這些猴子細胞已經遷移到小豬宿主的心臟、肝臟、肺、脾臟和皮膚，但在其他器官，如睪丸和卵巢中沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)，因為嵌合率較低。

Sadly, before a week was out, the piglets died - not just the two chimeras, but the other eight normal piglets, too. Because all the pigs died, Hai told New Scientist, the cause of death likely had less to do with chimerism, and more to do with IVF - a procedure that is notoriously tricky in pigs.

不幸的是，不到一個星期，這些小豬就死了——不只是兩個嵌合體，其他八只正常的小豬也死了。Hai告訴《新科學家》雜志，因為所有的豬都死了，所以死亡的原因可能與嵌合作用關系不大，而更多的是與試管受精有關。

The low chimerism rate is also somewhat discouraging. However, the researchers remain optimistic. Although the birth rate was low, and the pigs didn't survive, the team now has a wealth of data they can apply to future experiments.

較低的嵌合率也有些令人沮喪。然而，研究人員仍然保持樂觀。盡管出生率很低，豬也沒能活下來，但研究小組現(xiàn)在有大量的數(shù)據(jù)可以用于未來的實驗。

The scientists are planning to try again, increasing the chimeric cell ratio. And they believe their data may help other scientists working in the field.

科學家們計劃再次嘗試，增加嵌合細胞的比例。他們相信他們的數(shù)據(jù)可能會幫助其他在該領域工作的科學家。

Here, we have used monkey cells to explore the potential of reconstructing chimeric human organs in a large animal model, they wrote in their paper.

他們在論文中寫道:“在這里，我們用猴子細胞來探索在大型動物模型中重建嵌合人類器官的潛力。”

We believe this work will facilitate the development of xenogeneic organogenesis by providing a better understanding of the processes of xenogeneic recognition, fate determination, and the proliferation and differentiation of primate stem cells during porcine development.

“我們相信這項工作將促進異種器官發(fā)生的發(fā)展，通過提供對異種識別、命運決定以及在豬發(fā)育過程中靈長類干細胞的增殖和分化過程的更好理解。”

The findings could pave the way toward overcoming the obstacles in the re-engineering of heterogeneous organs and achieve the ultimate goal of human organ reconstruction in a large animal."

“這一發(fā)現(xiàn)可能為克服異種器官重組的障礙，實現(xiàn)大型動物人體器官重建的最終目標鋪平道路。”

The research has been published in Protein & Cell.

這項研究發(fā)表在《蛋白質與細胞》雜志上。