Nose to Hair: Differentiation of Olfactory Stem Cells

Sydney Australia -

In a study published in today's issue of Stem Cells, Australian scientists reported a unique methodology for coaxing olfactory adult stem cells to acquire the phenotype of cochlear hair cells. This finding is important because deafness results from loss of cochlear hair cells and the ability to generate these cells in vitro would conceptually open the door for cell therapy of deafness.

In a paper entitled "Differentiation of adult mouse olfactory precursor cells into hair cells in vitro." Doyle et al demonstrated that culturing of olfactory stem cells in the supernatant of cochlear cells induced the differentiation into the cochlear hair cell phenotype.

The identification of the factor elaborated by the cochlear cells that induced differentiation would yeild possible new patents. Additionally, this supernatant should be tested with other stem cell sources for ability to stimulate their differentiation.

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