New Idea on how the brain stem cells to grow cells, repair damaged tissue

Joint research activities, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the UK MS Society and the National Institutes of Health and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, was created by researchers at the University of California San Francisco ( UCSF) and the University of Cambridge and has been published today (1st July) in the journal Genes and Development.

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease, the body's immune system attacks the nerve fibers and their protective insulation, the myelin of the vagina, in the central nervous system. This damage prevents the nerves of "burning correctly and led to their destruction in the physical and mental.

It is currently believed that two factors determine the clinical outcomes in MS. First, it is important to stop ongoing damage (in particular by controlling the inflammation in the central nervous system). The second is that the damage, which is for the protection of the hull for myelin nerve fibers (This is a regenerative remyelination process in which new cases of myelin nerve fibers are back).

Although there are several effective treatments for reducing the inflammatory damage, no treatments are available to extend remyelination to repair damage to nerve fibers. The key to the development of these therapies repair, it is to understand how the brain's own stem cells to replace cells in the myelin (oligodendrocytes) lost in the disease. In the early stages of the disease, the brain's own stem cells are surprisingly well to repair damage in the Member States. But for reasons not yet well explained, they are less effective as the disease progresses.

In this study, researchers found that Wnt-signal, which play an active role in the conservation and multiplication of stem cells as a factor determining whether myelin oligodendrocytes can do effectively. Studies show that if the Wnt signal is active low, then the process is blocked. This offers the exciting possibility that compensation may be increased in MS patients by drugs, blocking Wnt-circuit.

Professor Robin Franklin of Cambridge University, a Senior Co-author of the study, explained the importance of their findings: "The path we have a central role to play if the repair of damaged cells or do not. It is interesting to note that mutations in this path are also several types of cancer. In this context, drugs that this signaling pathway have been seeking to inhibit the growth of the tumor could support . These drugs can also play a role in the promotion of repair in the Member States. "

Lead-author of the study, about Stephen, PhD, Postdoc in the laboratory of coauthor David Senior Rowitch, MD, PhD, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the University of California, San Francisco, said: "We we believe that an important step forward to understand why compensation in case of failure of neurological disorders such as MS, using a path, the myelin that inhibits the repair process, "said

MS Society Director of Research, Jayne Spink, said: "We are very pleased with the result of the excellent research that we know more about the mechanisms of MS. It works to open new avenues of research and suitable for further studies. The ability, the secrets behind the MS damage to us in our understanding of these conditions weaken. "

"Our forces have an impact on other diseases," said UCSF Rowitch. "In a condition known as periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), which can lead to cerebral palsy extremely premature, recent studies show the failure of one of oligodendrocytes to repair their role. As regards the myelin is not repair, we see a parallel between the chronic demyelinated plaques of multiple sclerosis lesions and PVL.