2023-11-30 タフツ大学
◆これにより、患者由来の生体ロボットを治療ツールとして活用し、再生、治癒、疾患の治療に使用することが研究者の展望となります。Anthrobotsは遺伝子改変なしに成人のヒト細胞から作成され、Xenobotsと呼ばれる他の生体ロボットよりも高い機能を持つことが示されました。これは、細胞が体外環境で新しい構造と機能を作り出す能力を探るもので、ヒト気管細胞が異なる「体の設計」で協力して他の機能を実現できるかどうかを解明する試みです。
<関連情報>
- https://now.tufts.edu/2023/11/30/scientists-build-tiny-biological-robots-human-cells
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.202303575
ヒト成体前駆細胞の種細胞から運動性の生きたバイオボットが自己構築される Motile Living Biobots Self-Construct from Adult Human Somatic Progenitor Seed Cells
Gizem Gumuskaya, Pranjal Srivastava, Ben G. Cooper, Hannah Lesser, Ben Semegran, Simon Garnier, Michael Levin
Advanced Science Published: 30 November 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202303575
Abstract
Fundamental knowledge gaps exist about the plasticity of cells from adult soma and the potential diversity of body shape and behavior in living constructs derived from genetically wild-type cells. Here anthrobots are introduced, a spheroid-shaped multicellular biological robot (biobot) platform with diameters ranging from 30 to 500 microns and cilia-powered locomotive abilities. Each Anthrobot begins as a single cell, derived from the adult human lung, and self-constructs into a multicellular motile biobot after being cultured in extra cellular matrix for 2 weeks and transferred into a minimally viscous habitat. Anthrobots exhibit diverse behaviors with motility patterns ranging from tight loops to straight lines and speeds ranging from 5–50 microns s-1. The anatomical investigations reveal that this behavioral diversity is significantly correlated with their morphological diversity. Anthrobots can assume morphologies with fully polarized or wholly ciliated bodies and spherical or ellipsoidal shapes, each related to a distinct movement type. Anthrobots are found to be capable of traversing, and inducing rapid repair of scratches in, cultured human neural cell sheets in vitro. By controlling microenvironmental cues in bulk, novel structures, with new and unexpected behavior and biomedically-relevant capabilities, can be discovered in morphogenetic processes without direct genetic editing or manual sculpting.
