| 研究実績の概要 |
As we are facing an aging population, regenerative medicine will play a key role in patient care. While the field is becoming one of the next major innovations in healthcare, clinical translations of therapies are often very modest. For this research project, I hypothesized that tissue regeneration is strongly regulated by a crosstalk between the adaptive immune system and tissue-resident stem cells. Specifically, subsets of T cells could act as either “antiregenerative” or as “proregenerative”, by regulating stem cell functions.
One the main goal for FY2015 was to determine which types of T cells and when are they recruited during stem cell-driven tissue healing. Using a bone regeneration model in the mouse, I found that T cells are recruited about 10 days following bone injury. The number of T cell is higher when the defects are treated with mesenchymal stem cells, especially the number of regulatory T cells.
The second goal was to determine whether T cells modulate stem cell-driven tissue healing. I found that mice with more regulatory T cells (regulatory T cells injected i.v.) significantly regenerate bone faster. In addition, when defect are treated with mesenchymal stem cells, mice with more regulatory T cells significantly regenerate bone faster.
The results of this research will serve as a base to design novel stem cell-based therapies.
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