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Could rat brain cells in mice help grow human organs in animals? A new study offers clues

  • Researchers in China and the US have pinpointed a gene defect that opens an interspecies door
  • The process could help overcome organ shortages around the world, they say

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A team of researchers based in China and the US say rat forebrain tissues that grew within the adult mice in their experiment “were structurally and functionally intact”. Photo: Shutterstock
Victoria Bela

Scientists based in China and the United States have grown the first functional rat cells within the brains of mice, a development that they say could help grow organs from human cells in animals.

Using a new CRISPR-based strategy, the researchers screened mice for a genetic fault that allows rat brain cells to grow in mice.

They then injected stem cells from rats into early stage mice embryos, creating chimeric organisms with cells derived from both species, a process known as interspecies blastocyst complementation (IBC).

Researchers had already grown rat pancreatic, reproductive and thymus cells within mice using IBC, according to the team’s paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell on April 25.

“To date, however, interspecies blastocyst complementation has not been achieved for any brain tissues,” said the researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Chinese scientists have also used IBC to grow humanised kidneys in pigs for transplant and researchers say the technique could be used to generate other kinds of animal organs with human cells.
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