Our bone marrow is the soft tissue that resides in our bones. This is where the magic happens and the body’s blood cells are developed and stored. These blood cells, which are involved in making other blood cells, are known as stem cells. The oldest stem cells are together called the pluripotent stem cell. The stem cells are different from other blood cells when it comes to the following properties.
- It is involved in the process of renewal. It can reproduce a cell that is identical to itself. This helps in the creation of more healthy cells.
- It can also differentiate between different stem cells. It can generate a few subsets of better and more mature cells.
- When it comes to a bone marrow transplant, these stem cells come to the patient’s rescue.
How are the recipient and donor matched?
The matching procedure involves typing in of human leukocyte antigen tissue, commonly known as HLA. The genetic makeup of a donor’s immune system is determined with the help of the antigens on the upper part of these white blood cells. There are a number of human leukocyte antigens, at least a 100; however, only the major antigens actually determine whether a donor and the recipient match. The others are called ‘minor’ and their effect on the entire transplantation procedure is not quite well-defined.
Research in the medicinal field is still trying to investigate how each of the antigens plays a role in the process of bone marrow transplant, to get a better clarity on the process so that more patients find more donors and the process become easier. The more the antigens match, the better is the engraftment procedure of the donated bone marrow. The engraftment procedure of the stem cells takes place when the donated cells make the way up to the bone marrow and begin to make new blood cells.
Our genes that code for our immune system is only on one chromosome. Since we have just one chromosome each from both our parents, the sibling of a patient who needs a transplant has only 1 in 4 chance of getting the same number and set chromosomes and being the full and complete match for transplantation.
Now a number of engineered stem cells are being used to bring about improvement in the
Bone Marrow Transplant in India treatment
sector and all the blood transfusions. A group of doctors has recently overcome one of the biggest hurdles in the stem cell therapy sector, i.e., how to produce a large number of potent stem cells for humans.
Did you know?
Parents can be excellent matches. This is known as an haploid-identical match where the genetic match is half identical to the recipient in question. Here the donor is the parent. However, these transplants are extremely rare.
Another and the more common type of transplant is known as unrelated bone marrow transplants. These stem cells or the genetically matched marrow comes usually from an unrelated donor. These donors can be found through bone marrow registries
