Current Role of Stem Cell Transplantation for Leukemias, Lymphomas, and Myelomas
Tariq I Mughal, John M Goldman, Sabena T Mughal in Understanding Leukemias, Lymphomas, and Myelomas, 2017
After allogeneic transplantation the recipient’ hematopoietic system may be entirely of donor origin (known as donor chimerism), entirely of recipient origin (signifying complete graft rejection followed by an autologous recovery), or a mixture of donor and recipient (host) cells (known as mixed chimerism). The Chimera (a Greek word χιμερα), in mythology, was a fire breathing creature which had the head of a lion, the body of a she-goat, and the tail of a dragon. In medicine, the term describes an organism whose body contains cell populations from different individuals of the same or different species occurring either spontaneously or created artificially. Chimerism analysis following an allogeneic transplantation is very useful since the presence of a mixed chimerism in the blood or bone marrow often identifies individuals at risk of disease relapse and also helps predict graft rejection.
Before the cut
Gabriele Griffin, Malin Jordal in Body, Migration, Re/Constructive Surgeries, 2018
In drawing on Shildrick’s research on the inherent hybridity of organ transplantation that already unsettles identity to the self, and not least the sexed self, it becomes possible to look at the event of chimerism as it contests the discourse of sexual difference. The word is derived from the Greek myth of the Chimera, a fabulous creature which combined elements of a lion, a goat and a serpent, and thus broke species boundaries to create something new. In biomedicine, the term most frequently encountered is microchimerism, which at the simplest level denotes a small but significant presence of so-called non-self cells coexisting with a dominant population of putative self cells in the same body (Shildrick, 2016). Each cell has its own distinct DNA signature, which is regarded as indicating either maleness if containing an XY-chromosome or femaleness if containing an XX-chromosome. For practical reasons, the easiest way to establish microchimerism is by the detection of conventionally ‘out of place’ Y-chromosomes within a ‘normal’ female body, and most of the research has been carried out on women, and particularly on women who are or have been pregnant.
Life, death and immortality
Julie Kent in Regenerating Bodies, 2012
A number of conceptual and practical difficulties emerge when we see cell and tissue therapies as destabilizing the meanings of bodies. Bodies seem to disappear as they are denaturalized, and the significance of gendered bodies also begins to unravel. Conceptualized as chimeras, as a cellular mixture, whether following pregnancy or following tissue/cell transplants, bodily boundaries (and notions of bodily integrity) collapse. There is, then, no place for a foundational basis of epistemiology or ethics that is premised on essentialized ideas of bodies. Ethics, as the intersubjective agreement of how social life is ordered, poses questions about the moral economy of neo-liberal capitalism for feminists that goes beyond, but I suggest also recuperates, gendered bodies. This is a task that extends beyond the scope of this book and is itself a distinct, though related, project. My question is, to what extent does feminist argument depend, not only on gendering the body and re-embodiment, but also on prioritizing the ethical status of reproductive tissues – embryos, oocytes, amnion, placenta, fetuses and cord blood?
Human Brain Surrogates Research: The Onrushing Ethical Dilemma
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2021
A second approach is to make human/non-human chimeras. Chimeras are creatures that have cells and tissues from more than one individual integrated in them, sometimes from the same species and sometimes from different ones (Greely 2003). Humans with organ transplants are intra-specific chimeras; humans with heart valves taken from pigs are inter-specific chimeras. For this research, non-human animals have had some human cells or tissues added to them. That approach has been used for many decades for, say, studying human tumors by transplanting them into mice. But in the last two decades, we have transplanted more cells and tissues from humans directly into non-human animals’ brains. The increase reflects our improving ability to understand and exploit stem cells, to deal with the hosts’ immune systems to prevent them from destroying the human cells, and generally to more understanding of brain function.
The toxicological effect of 4-week repeated intravenous injection of activin a/BMP-2 chimera and 2-week recovery study in Beagle dog*
Published in Drug and Chemical Toxicology, 2021
Shi Huan Han, Guang Bin Zheng, Jae Hyup Lee
AB204 is a chimera of Activin A and BMP-2. This chimera was developed using a segmental gene cloning strategy. It has been reported that AB204 can induce complete bone healing with 10-fold lower dose than rhBMP-2 in rodent calvarial and tibial defect models (Yoon et al.2014). Furthermore, a low dose of AB204 can significantly improve the fusion rate in a large animal spinal fusion model compared to an equal dose of rhBMP-2 (Zheng et al.2017). As a new potent osteoinductive substance, information on toxicology is crucial, especially in a large animal model. A recent toxicological evaluation of a single intravenous injection of AB204 in a rodent model has revealed only low levels of cartilaginous tissue formation and fibrosis at the injection site (Yoon et al.2015). In addition, a high dose injection of AB204 does not affect the respiratory or central nervous systems, similar to results of previous studies using rhBMP-2 (Yoon et al.2016, Kim et al.2014). Furthermore, repetitive intravenous injections of a high dose of AB204 for a short time (two weeks) does not show any toxicity in a large animal model of beagle dog (Lee et al.2018).
Bioengineering strategies for nephrologists: kidney was not built in a day
Published in Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy, 2020
Anna Julie Peired, Benedetta Mazzinghi, Letizia De Chiara, Francesco Guzzi, Laura Lasagni, Paola Romagnani, Elena Lazzeri
Chimeras are defined as organisms composed of a mixture of cell populations originated from different organisms. They necessitate the combination of donor cells, which can be of embryonic, fetal or adult origin, and a host, which provides the physiological environment and life support to the donor cells. Donor and host can be or not of the same species [32]. While used for years as experimental models to study the pathophysiology of different organs, recent technological breakthroughs opened the door to potential applications for organ generation. Two different approaches have been developed, blastocyst complementation and targeted organ complementation [32].
Related Knowledge Centers
- Blood Cell
- Cell Division
- Chimera
- Mutation
- Phenotype
- Embryo
- Genotype
- Zygote
- Blood Type
- Hybrid