Amniotic Stem Cells: Old News

Winston-Salem, North Carolina -

Readers of StemCellPatents.com are familiar with the fact that amniotic fluid contains stem cells with pluripotent activity useful for numerous applications, including regeneration of cartilage.

A press release that made national coverage cited a paper (De Coppi et al. Isolation of amniotic stem cell lines with potential for therapy. Nat Biotechnol. 2007 Jan 7) that described stem cells from amniotic fluid have the potential of differentiating along the adipogenic, osteogenic, myogenic, endothelial, neuronal and hepatic lineages.

This finding, which is supported by previous experimental data, indicates that amniotic fluid may be an ideal source of stem cells for therapeutic purposes. Unfortunately, the number of cells extracted from amniotic fluid is relatively small and not only requires expansion ex vivo, but also tissue matching, which limits availability.

Don't be surprised if an industry springs up around "amniotic stem cell harvesting" in the same way that it did around cord blood.