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How body repairs itself when organs become diseased | Rhode Island Hospital boffins have discovered how cells communicate with each other during times of cellular
injury. The findings shed new light on how the body repairs itself when organs
become diseased, through small particles known as microvesicles, and offers hope
for tissue regeneration. The paper is published in the March 2010 edition of the
journal Experimental Hematology. Lead author Jason Aliotta , MD , a physician
researcher in the pulmonary/critical care and hematology/oncology departments
at Rhode Island Hospital , and his colleagues focused their work on the microvesicles.
These particles are several times smaller than a normal cell and contain genetic
information such as messenger ribonucleic acid (RNA), other species of RNA and
protein. The paper shows a novel mechanism by which the cells communicate with
each other through these microvesicles. During times of cellular injury or stress,
or with certain diseases like cancer, infections and cardiovascular disease, these
particles are shed and then taken up by other cells in the body. The genetic information
and protein in the microvesicles helps to reprogram the accepting cell to behave
more like the cell from which the particle was derived. Aliotta is also an assistant
professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
and a physician with University Medicine Foundation, Inc. He says, "What we attempted
to understand is how cells within the bone marrow are able to repair organs that
are unrelated to those bone marrow cells, such as the lung. Our work suggests
that when the lung is injured or diseased and cells within the lung are stressed
or dying, they shed microvesicles. Those microvesicles are then consumed by cells
within the bone marrow, including stem cells, which are present in small numbers
within the circulatory system. Those bone marrow cells then turn into lung cells." |
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