Ischemic heart disease (IHD), also known as coronary artery disease, is a leading cause of death and morbidity in western countries. IHD arises when blood vessels of the heart become clogged, blunting oxygen and nutrient supply to heart muscle cells, which eventually die off, leading to heart attack or heart failure.  Although larger blood vessels can be replaced surgically to restore blood flow, there is currently no treatment targeting smaller blood vessels, so-called microvessels, which are essential for the uniform blood circulation within the heart muscle. 

Yasuhiro Shudo and his team from Stanford University, USA have tested a method to regenerate microvessels in the heart with stem cell-derived vascular organoids. Their work was published today in Stem Cell Reports.

Nutritional imbalance during pregnancy can have long-lasting effects on the health status and disease susceptibility of the offspring. As such, high fructose intake through sweetened food and beverages in pregnant women has been associated with an increased susceptibility to diabetes and cardiovascular disease, as well as neurological and cognitive impairments in the offspring. Currently, it is not well understood how early life exposure to fructose has such long-lasting effects on the cellular and molecular level.  

In a recent paper published in Stem Cell Reports, Hiroya Yamada’s team from Fujita Health University School of Medicine, Toyoake, Japan found that the performance of adult rats in learning and memory tests was impaired when the rats had been exposed to high fructose in before birth by feeding their mothers with high fructose corn syrup

In a study published today in Stem Cell Reports, Shunsuke Yuri of the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Japan and Ayako Isotani of the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, successfully generated rat-derived kidneys in mice using a technique known as interspecies blastocyst complementation. The researchers created mouse embryos genetically unable to form kidneys, leaving a developmental niche that could be filled by injected embryonic stem cells. When rat embryonic stem cells were introduced into these embryos, they contributed extensively to kidney formation, particularly to nephron progenitor cells and ureteric bud lineages, resulting in the generation of a rat cell-derived kidney.