Powerful New Cells Cloned: Key to Immune System Disease Could Lie Inside the Cheek

The immune system can be harmful. How? The immune system can attack insulin, thus cause diabetes. Also, the immune system can cause organ transplant rejection. However, cheek lining tissue contains cells that could fight these disorders.

Suppressing the immune system after an organ transplant is necessary to avoid rejection.  In answer to this problem, a team from the School of Dentistry and Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute found a group of cells with the ability to suppress the immune system. Consequently, the team cloned the cells from patients’ cheeks. These cloned cells (even in small doses) could inhibit the lymphocytes more efficiently than adult stem cells from bone marrow.

The potential to combat many immune system-related diseases still requires years of laboratory research before humans can receive treatments, yet the invasive biopsy from bone marrow could no longer be necessary in the relatively near future. More information regarding these findings can be found in Stem Cells and Development. Could the ability to suppress the immune system after an “organ transplant” help the innovation of an artificial kidney?   

Source :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120321105340.htm
ScienceDaily –March 21, 2012

Leanne Kristek, VTPP 435-501