2 Stem Cell Patents Issued Last Week

Dear manoj kumar valluru,

Happy New Year from StemCellPatents.com !

Last week 2 patents of relevance to the area of stem cells were issued.

1. # 7,314,959 (Patent Spotlight), teaches how to protect from chemotherapy and radiotherapy toxicity using novel polyamine and amino thiol compounds.

2. # 7,314,921 covers novel variations of erythropoietin which contain substituted cystein instead of various non-essential amino acids.

In The News

TGF-beta stimulating bone marrow to cardiac in vitro

Monday December 31st, 2007 @ 04:18:37 EST

Yamaguchi, Japan -

The ability of various mesenchymal stem cell populations and CD34 stem cell populations to help in stimulation of cardiac regeneration is a current belief by many investigators. Although some positive in vivo data have been generated with purified mesenchymal populations, as well as bone marrow stem cells little is known about the molecular mechanisms of differentiation.

For example, how does the injured myocardium actually induce the undifferentiated stem cells that are injected intravenously or intracoronarily actually “instruct” the stem cells to differentiate into cardiac tissue? We do know that gradients of factors such as SDF-1 are important in homing of stem cells and that injured hearts make SDF-1 and VEGF however we do not know the factors that actually are involved in the differentiation process.

In a recent study _(Li et al. TGF-beta induces the differentiation of bone marrow stem cells into immature cardiomyocytes. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2007 Dec 22 )_ the question of bone marrow to cardiomyocyte differentiation was addressed.

It was demonstrated that growing bone marrow stem cells in the presence of TGF-beta 1, would induce morphological differentiation of the stem cells into cardiomyocyte-like cells. These cells expressed cardiac-specific transcription factors such as GATA-4 and NKx-2.5. Additionally, markers such as cardiac myosin, troponin, and atrial natriuretic peptide were detected. By day 28 of culture the calcium flux was relatively weak and spontaneous beating had dissipated.

It will be interesting to combine this in vitro differentiation approach with other agents such as histone deacetylase inhibitors which have been previously demonstrated to increase expression of some markers of cardiomyocytes.

Ask a question OR leave your comments.

This Week's Patent Spotlight

Amino thiol compounds and compositions for use in conjunction with cancer therapy

Patent Number: 7,314,959

Assignee | Inventor

One of the important areas of drug development is protecting stem cells and healthy tissue from the damaging effects of cytotoxic chemotherapy and radiation therapy. In fact, a “stem cell therapy” that has become a multi-billion dollar product is the use of G-CSF to stimulate hematopoietic recovery after cancer therapy or bone marrow transplantation. In fact, numerous patents have been filed for all sorts of ways of stimulating hematopoiesis or protecting the bone marrow compartment using agents such as Oxypurine nucleosides mutants of interleukin-3 stromal stem cells and Cofilin a protein which binds actin and is believed to be involved in disassembly of actin filaments is a protein which binds actin and is believed to be involved in disassembly of actin filaments.

In the current patent the inventors cover the composition of matter for a series of polyamine and amino thiol compounds that have protective activity on hair loss, dermatitis, mucositis or gastrointestinal distress caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy. One of the proposed mechanisms of actions of these compounds is protection of epidermal and follicular matrix stem cells.

Polyamines are interesting since they have been associated with tumor suppression of immunity _(Kano Y et al. Increased blood spermine levels decrease the cytotoxic activity of lymphokine-activated killer cells: a novel mechanism of cancer evasion. Cancer Immunol Immunother. 2007 Jun;56:771-81)_, so perhaps the analogues generated in this patent are not immune suppressive. Another interesting fact about some polyamines is that they can directly bind DNA since the amine group is positively charged and the DNA backbone is negative. Since polyamines can alter the B-DNA structure (which is sensitive to free radicals), the treatment with polyamines may temporarily protect from radiation. However it is interesting to ponder whether this would have any epigenetic effects as well.

Ask a question OR leave your comments.

LATEST JOBS