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The PluriMes Project Pluripotent stem cell resources for mesodermal medicine

A consortium of 12 European partners have been awarded €6million by the European Commission for a research and development project focused on directing stem cells to become bone and muscle.

Pluripotent stem cells have the potential to generate any type of cell found in the body. They are generated and multiplied in the laboratory. By harnessing the capacity of pluripotent stem cells to produce functional cell types with precision and at scale, researchers hope to enable new treatment modalities for degenerative diseases. The PluriMes project is specifically targeted at therapies for muscle, bone and cartilage.

The project combines the expertise of ten academic and two industrial partners to bring together stem cell experts, genetic engineers, developmental biologists, cell therapy pioneers, bioengineers and specialist SMEs in a cross-disciplinary collaborative effort. PluriMes is supported through the European Commission’s Framework 7 HEALTH research programme and Coordinated by Professor Austin Smith from the Wellcome Trust – Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute at the University of Cambridge.


 

Muscle Interstitial Cells: A Brief Field Guide to Non-satellite Cell Populations in Skeletal Muscle

Tedesco FS, Moyle LA and Perdiguero E. Muscle Interstitial Cells: A Brief Field Guide to Non-satellite Cell Populations in Skeletal Muscle. Methods in Molecular Biology; 2017; 1556: 129-147

Generation of human muscle fibers and satellite-like cells from human pluripotent stem cells in vitroProgress toward finding a cure for muscle diseases has been slow because of the absence of relevant cellular models and the lack of a reliable source of muscle progenitors for biomedical investigation.
Differentiation of pluripotent stem cells to muscle fiber to model Duchenne muscular dystrophyUsing embryonic development as a guide, PluriMes researchers and their collaborators established conditions for the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells into musculoskeletal progenitors without the introduction of transgenes or cell sorting.
No Identical “Mesenchymal Stem Cells” at Different Times and Sites: Human Committed Progenitors of Distinct Origin and Differentiation Potential Are Incorporated as Adventitial Cells in MicrovesselsThis study has important applicative implications. It demonstrates that, in contrast with the hypothesis of the existence of ubiquitous and equivalent mesodermal progenitors (“Mesenchymal Stem Cells”), human post-natal mesodermal tissues include distinct classes of progenitors able to regenerate only the tissue in which they reside.
Cell‐Instructive Microgels with Tailor‐Made Physicochemical PropertiesA microfluidic in vitro cell encapsulation platform to systematically test the effects of microenvironmental parameters on cell fate in 3D is developed in this paper.
Substrate elasticity modulates the responsiveness of mesenchymal stem cells to commitment cuesGobaa S, Hoehnel S and Lutolf MP. Substrate elasticity modulates the responsiveness of mesenchymal stem cells to commitment cues. Integrative Biology, 7 (10), 1135-42, 2015 Oct. Epub 2015 Mar 9.
Expansion and patterning of cardiovascular progenitors derived from human pluripotent stem cellsPluriMes researchers and their collaborators developed defined conditions for the differentiation and expansion of LPM derivative progenitors that can be differentiated into cardiac muscle, pacemaker-like cells and endothelial cells.
Efficient Derivation and Inducible Differentiation of Expandable Skeletal Myogenic Cells from Human ES and Patient-Specific iPS CellsPluriMes researchers have published a detailed protocol in which human pluripotent stem cells are first differentiated into expandable cells resembling human mesoangioblasts and subsequently efficiently induced to muscle cells.
Osteoblast-specific expression of the Fibrous Dysplasia (FD) causing mutation, GsαR201C produces a high bone mass phenotype but does not reproduce FD in the mouseThe study reports on a novel transgenic mouse models that may be important to understand the role of the Gsa gene in bone forming cells.
Culture Adaptation Alters Transcriptional Hierarchies Among Single Human Embryonic Stem Cells Reflecting Altered Patterns of DifferentiationThis single cell gene expression analysis demonstrates the heterogeneity of undifferentiated human pluripotent stem cells, and that they can be classified into distinct subgroups.