u/Born_Vacation7154 — reddlx

I recently came across a body of work by Henry E. Young describing what he calls adult telomerase-positive stem cells (aTPSCs), and I wanted to ask this community for a serious scientific assessment of the claims.

Disclaimer: I’m not endorsing this research, not promoting treatments, and not giving medical advice.

Summary of the claims

The work proposes that rare endogenous adult stem-cell populations exist throughout connective tissues in a dormant/quiescent state and act as the body’s natural repair system when injury occurs.

These proposed populations include:

MesoSCs – mesoderm-lineage stem cells

EctoSCs – ectoderm-lineage stem cells

EndoSCs – endoderm-lineage stem cells

PSCs – pluripotent adult stem cells

TSCs – totipotent adult stem cells

According to the model, these cells can become activated after injury, proliferate, enter circulation, migrate to damaged tissues, and differentiate in response to local signals.

Claimed isolation protocol

Have volunteer eat 1-2 cups of blueberries daily for at least 30 days (longer is better). Proliferates aTPSCs in situ.
18 hours before harvest have them do intense weight-lifting exercises for at least 30 minutes. Mobilizes aTPSCs into bloodstream.
18 hours after intense exercise, harvest 2-cc's blood per pound body weight, not to exceed 400-cc's. Use butterfly vacuum apparatus into 10-ml purple top EDTA tubes (BD). [DO NOT withdraw blood by pulling on syringe, creates sheer forces that lyse red blood cells, which screws up isolation procedure for aTPSCs]
Place tubes into refrigerator (4C) for 18-24 hours and let hematocrit form using gravity and zeta potential of aTPSCs [aTPSCs will separate from blood products and remain suspended in plasma]
Remove plasma from each tube.
Mix plasma 1:1 with Opti-Mem + GlutaMax medium containing 10-ml Heat Inactivated serum, pH 7.4.
Plate cells onto 1% collagen-coated Falcon T-75 flasks at 30 ml per flask. Rock flasks side-to-side and front-to-back to evenly disperse cells.
Place flasks horizontally onto shelves of 5% CO2, 37C tissue culture incubator.
Replace medium when there is color change from salmon to orange-yellow.
Follow directions outlined in attached publications for growth, propagation, replating, and testing.

For verification:

Before testing, suggest using either FACS or Miltenyi columns, perform two negative sorts followed by positive sort to derived individual populations of the cells, as outlined in the paper on flow cytometry.

Flow cytometry using CD66e (TSCs), CD10 (PSCs), CD56/CD90/MHC Class-1 (EctoSCs), CD13/CD90/MHC Class-1 (MesoSCs), CD??/CD90/ MHC Class-1 (EndoSCs). When doing flow cytometry, look at all regions of the plot, bottom left-hand corner (routinely excluded because of debris, is also location of the TSCs)

Expressed genes - see Characterization paper

Differentiation potential: use commerically-available human recombinant proteins:

A. EPO/IL6/c-Kit for RBC colony forming units (TSCs+, PSCs+, EctoSCs-, MesoSCs+, EndoSCs-); BMP-2 forms bone (TSCs+, PSCs+, EctoSCs-, MesoSCs+, EndoSCs-)

B. NGF (Nerve Growth Factor) to stimulate formation of neurons, oligodendrocytes, astrocytes, ganglion cells, and radial glial cells (TSCs+, PSCs+, EctoSCs+, MesoSCs-, EndoSCs-)

C. HGF (Hepatocyte Growth Factor) to simulate formation of liver cells: hepatocytes, oval cells, etc. (TSCs+, PSCs+, EctoSCs-, MesoSCs-, EndoSCs+)

Paper: Cell Biochem Biophys. 2004; 40: 1-80. Outlines procedure for verification of telomerase within the cells.

My perspective

If naturally occurring adult pluripotent or totipotent repair cells truly exist, that would be a major discovery. But extraordinary claims require strong, reproducible evidence.

If anyone attempts to isolate these cells following the protocol by letter, please tell me how it went.

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