The world's first human-monkey chimera embryo is born

“Some friends often exclaimed that our work was too sci-fi and terrible after hearing about our work.

"Far neighbors are not as good as close relatives", why?

Approximately 2 million people worldwide are in desperate need of organ transplantation every year to save lives, but the main source of organs is still donations, and the gap is huge.

Which animal is suitable for raising organs for humans? Scientists first think of pigs.

However, past studies have shown that, including commonly used experimental animals such as pigs, rats and mice, the chimerism of human cells in embryos that are relatively distant from humans is very limited, and it is almost impossible to form real human organs.

In January 2017, Wu Jun, a researcher at the Salk Institute of Biology (currently an assistant professor at the Southwestern Medical Research Center in the United States) and others announced that they had successfully cultivated the first human-pig chimera embryo, which developed in pigs for 3 to 4 weeks.

They tried to explore the mechanism.

Under the leadership of Academician Ji Weizhi of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tan Tao, Niu Yuyu, Dai Shaoxing and others of Kunming University of Science and Technology and Juan Carlos Izpisuya Belmont, Wu Jun and others of the Salk Institute of Biology have reached an agreement.

What are the communication codes of human and monkey cells?

The researchers injected human expanded pluripotent stem cells (human EPS cells) into the early blastocysts of more than 150 cynomolgus monkeys.

At this time, the chimeric embryo has entered the gastrulation period, that is, the blastocyst begins to differentiate into ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm.

According to statistics, the chimeric efficiency of human cells in cynomolgus monkey embryos is about 4%, far exceeding the previous human-pig chimeric embryos.

"We are aware that the mosaic process between different species is indeed very different.

What surprised them even more was that with the injection of human cells, the cells of the monkey embryo itself became like human cells in terms of expression characteristics, and at the same time, the human cells also undergo a similar transformation, becoming like monkey cells.

"This is very interesting.

"This work provides theoretical evidence for organ regeneration through heterogeneous mosaicism.

Behind the human-monkey chimera is a strong alliance of scientists

The birth of the first human-monkey chimera embryo is inseparable from the technological progress in related fields in recent years, as well as the layout and accumulation of domestic scientific research institutions.

The human EPS cells used in this work came from a new pluripotent stem cell line published by Peking University professor Deng Hongkui's group in 2017.

Previously, research on chimerism between humans and primates was limited by technology, funding, experimental conditions, and ethical norms, and relatively few developments were carried out.
Fortunately, the Institute of Primate Translational Medicine established by Kunming University of Science and Technology in 2014 has accumulated rich experience in the research of primate reproduction and development; Juan Carlos and Wu Jun are well-known scholars in the field of chimera research—— "The complementary advantages of the two sides make it possible for monkey chimera embryos.
" Tan Tao said.
(Source: China Science News Li Chenyang)

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