Human heart structure beats 21 days in pig embryo, Chinese chimera research team says
The research could have implications for organ transplants, which are limited by the small number of donors
Chinese scientists have, for the first time, cultivated a beating heart structure with human cells in a pig embryo, reporting that the heart continued to beat for 21 days unaided.
The study, led by Lai Liangxue’s team from the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was announced at the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Hong Kong on June 12.
Previously, the team had cultivated human kidneys in pigs for up to 28 days.
According to a report in Nature on June 13, the team reprogrammed human stem cells by introducing genes to prevent cell death and improve their survival in pigs.
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At the early blastocyst stage – early in pregnancy when a ball of cells forms – they implanted pre-modified human stem cells into pig embryos, which were then transferred to surrogate sows.