In what could shed new light on how the body repairs itself when organs become diseased and offer hope for tissue regeneration, scientists have discovered how cells communicate with each other during cellular injury.
For their research, a team at Rhode Island Hospital focused its work on microvesicles which are particles several times smaller than a normal cell and contain genetic data such as messenger ribonucleic acid (RNA), other species of RNA and protein, the 'Experimental Hematology' journal reported.
Lead author Jason Aliotta said: "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," he explained.
Other researchers have reported similar findings over the last couple of years, however, microvesicles have been known about for over 40 years and were considered irrelevant.
"We are now recognizing the relevance of microvesicles -- they are important mediators of cell-to-cell communication. What is unique to our research is that microvesicles not only supply information to stem cells with lung injury, but this process also occurs in other organs as well, like the heart, liver and brain," Aliotta said.
The scientists have reported unique findings, noting that the change in those stem cells that have consumed microvesicles made by injured lung cells is very stable -- the change appears to be permanent. Stem cells are reprogrammed due to the transfer of microvesicle-based transcription factors. These factors cause cells to behave atypically.
"This would be relevant to any type of disease if you want to repair damaged tissue, these microvesicles potentially provide a durable fix, and the hope is that it would be fixed forever," Aliotta said.
