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from the bartender!-I'll-have-a-shot-of-bourbon-and-a-shot-of-hepatocytes dept.
Pigs Grow New Liver in Lymph Nodes, Study Shows:
Hepatocytes — the chief functional cells of the liver — are natural regenerators, and the lymph nodes serve as a nurturing place where they can multiply. In a new study published online and appearing in a coming issue of the journal Liver Transplantation, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine showed that large animals with ailing livers can grow a new organ in their lymph nodes from their own hepatocytes. A human clinical trial is next.
"It's all about location, location, location," said senior author Eric Lagasse, Pharm.D., Ph.D., associate professor of pathology at Pitt "If hepatocytes get in the right spot and there is a need for liver functions, they will form an ectopic liver in the lymph node."
The cells of the liver normally replenish themselves, but need a healthy, nurturing environment to regenerate. However, in end-stage liver disease, the liver is bound up by scar tissue and too toxic for the cells to make a comeback.
"The liver is in a frenzy to regenerate," said Lagasse, who also is a member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center. "The hepatocytes try to repair their native liver, but they can't and they die."
[...] To mimic human liver disease in pigs, the researchers diverted the main blood supply from the liver, and at the same time, they removed a piece of healthy liver tissue and extracted the hepatocytes. Those liver cells were then injected into the abdominal lymph nodes of the same animal they came from.
All six pigs showed a recovery of liver function, and close examination of their lymph nodes revealed not only thriving hepatocytes, but also a network of bile ducts and vasculature that spontaneously formed among the transplanted liver cells.
The auxiliary livers grew bigger when the damaged tissue in the animals' native liver was more severe, indicating that the animals' bodies are maintaining an equilibrium of liver mass, rather than having runaway growth akin to cancer.
[...] Three of the authors have a financial stake in LyGenesis, which is a startup company they founded to support clinical translation.
No DOI information is available at the time of publication.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2020, @05:21AM (1 child)
My question is: can they make more bacon instead?
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Tuesday August 25 2020, @06:08AM
Yeap. It will taste of bile, though.
Acquired taste, they say... (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by captain normal on Tuesday August 25 2020, @05:30AM
This could be good news for EF.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2020, @05:53AM (1 child)
In other news, Scientist have observed an entire pig liver growing in the scrotum of the Runaway1956, due to excessive swapping of genetic material between said Runaway1956 and several porcinas. Delivery expected within the next few months, in a secret facility in Furman, Arkansays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2020, @07:25AM
This all sounds suspiciously like Goat Gland Science [nationalgeographic.com]. Are we to suspect that the Runaway has had a bit of the old caprine skin glands [sciencedirect.com] surgically inserted into strategic locations.
https://www.historynet.com/john-r-brinkley-the-goat-gland-miracle-man.htm [historynet.com]
Kansas, the Broke-Brownback Miracle State!
At least it's not Hydroxychloroquinine or Oleanderdearin, from the HUD secretary, the Trade Adviser and sinophobe, or My Pillow guy. Lovely convention, by the way.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2020, @06:07AM (1 child)
In all my years, I'd never really thought that much about the lymphatic system. Among the many fascinating tidbits, I learned that some animals have not one, but many lymph hearts that pump lymphatic fluid! It's like there are real life Klingons, except they tend to be worms or amphibians for some reason. Octopus and squid can apparently have more than one blood heart.
I'm guessing that the energy expenditure for multiple pumps isn't worth it for higher organisms, so we're stuck with our single point of failure and never knowing the joy of having our enemies think they've killed us because they stuck a sword through our chest, only for us to fight on and crack their skulls wide open.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 25 2020, @02:01PM
It's not energy expenditure, it's pump efficiency. Simple hearts, like those of the earthworm, don't even have valves, and are less efficient. Efficient hearts require proper synchronization, so they tend to be combined into one heart. Earthworms have 12 "hearts", but those hearts are just wide places in the blood vessels that can squeeze down to move the blood...no valves. Even so all 12 are located near the front end, and in a pinch (say if something bites off the front end) the earthworm can get along without them. But they're close together to increase efficiency by synchronization.
N.B.: People still have remnants of that "simple heart" system. Many blood vessels can squeeze (or be squeezed) when there's need to move more blood through a particular area. And I believe that's the primary way lymph is moved around.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Tuesday August 25 2020, @06:54AM (2 children)
Sign me up! Liver in the armpit. New Kidney in the neck. New Heart on your thigh.
Hope they can get this figured out sooner than later.
To my 200 year old self: Blue
(Score: 3, Funny) by Booga1 on Tuesday August 25 2020, @06:59AM
I think I saw something like that in a Resident Evil game!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2020, @11:06PM
Maybe they'll put a brain in your head.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:46AM
So the newly appearing livers produce bile. How are the lymph nodes going to connect with the digestive tract?