Bioengineered stents help rabbits successfully produce babylets

BEIJING, June 29 (Xinhua Zhang Mengran) Through histological engineering, an American research team used bioengineering stents and rabbits' own cells to repair damaged organs of 10 rabbits, four of which ended up in normal pregnancy and live birth. The methods described in the study are expected to be translated into humans in the future. The paper was published in the British journal Nature Biotechnology on the 29th.
Previous studies have shown that bioengineering methods can repair minor organ defects in rodents, including uterine defects, but scientists have long failed to achieve live uterine repair in rodents or larger animals.
This time, Researcher Anthony Atla and colleagues at Wake Forest University School of Medicine implanted biodegradable polymer stents in the damaged uterus of 78 rabbits, some of which were implanted with the rabbit's own uterine cells, known as "plant bioengineered cell stents," and others with "unseeded stents." The team then examined the rabbits' uterine repair levels in detail, one month, three months and six months after implantation.
researchers observed that the stent had degraded by the third month after implantation, and that by the sixth month after implantation, there was no significant difference between engineered and natural tissues. In the end, of the 10 rabbits implanted with the "planted bioengineered cell stent", four were able to have a normal pregnancy until the full month, while none of the 10 rabbits implanted with the unseeded stent were able to reach full-time.
researchers say that about 6 percent of women treated for infertility in humans have uterine dysfunction, and transplanting a uterus from a living or dead donor has been successful in humans, but the scarcity of donor organs and the need for immunosuppressive therapy to support the transplanted uterus limit the practical application of this method. The new approach will be important for women affected by infertility in the future. Because similar tissue engineering stents have been used to successfully repair other tyche tissues in humans, such as the urethra and bladder, the methods described in the study are also expected to be converted into humans.
team stressed that not all animals have achieved a successful pregnancy and that further animal studies are needed before the method can be tested in humans.