New mouse stem cell is just like ours

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 months 4 weeks (www.newscientist.com)

The discovery of a mouse embryonic stem cell that is a near-perfect match to human cells may speed research in new treatments for injury and disease.

Taking cells from mouse embryos at later stages--epiblasts instead of blastomeres--seems to prevent them from developing the traits that make them so very different from human cell lines. This has many scientists pondering the evolutionary differences between humans and mice, but the real kicker seems to be that primate stem cell lines are much more difficult to culture than lines made from other species. If mice can sub in, this would be a very very good thing.

Keywords: politics epiblasts stem cell research stem cell lines stem cells