Molecular fingerprints from a "heavy" mouse using solid-state NMR spectroscopy have enabled Dr Melinda Duer's research group and their collaborators to generate laboratory-grown bone-like tissue that closely mimics the real thing.
The heavy mouse, enriched in 13C and 15N throughout the proteins of its tissues, allowed multidimensional NMR spectra to be recorded on real tissues, to compare with those from laboratory-grown tissue. This data was then used to grow biological tissue in the lab practically identical to native tissue, which can be manipulated and analysed in ways impossible for natural samples. In the earliest work with the new in vitro tissue, the team have discovered that poly(ADP ribose) (PAR) - a molecule believed to only exist inside a cell for the purpose of repairing DNA - not only travels outside cells but may trigger bone mineralisation.
The paper has been published in Science.