Posted on 08/08/2010 10:23:36 AM PDT by decimon
Researchers from UCI, UCSD and Harvard deleted a cell growth inhibitor called PTEN
Irvine, Calif. — Researchers for the first time have induced robust regeneration of nerve connections that control voluntary movement after spinal cord injury, showing the potential for new therapeutic approaches to paralysis and other motor function impairments.
In a study on rodents, the UC Irvine, UC San Diego and Harvard University team achieved this breakthrough by turning back the developmental clock in a molecular pathway critical for the growth of corticospinal tract nerve connections.
They did this by deleting an enzyme called PTEN (a phosphatase and tensin homolog), which controls a molecular pathway called mTOR that is a key regulator of cell growth. PTEN activity is low early during development, allowing cell proliferation. PTEN then turns on when growth is completed, inhibiting mTOR and precluding any ability to regenerate.
Trying to find a way to restore early-developmental-stage cell growth in injured tissue, Zhigang He, a senior neurology researcher at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, first showed in a 2008 study that blocking PTEN in mice enabled the regeneration of connections from the eye to the brain after optic nerve damage.
He then partnered with Oswald Steward of UCI and Binhai Zheng of UCSD to see if the same approach could promote nerve regeneration in injured spinal cord sites. Results of their study appear online in Nature Neuroscience.
"Until now, such robust nerve regeneration has been impossible in the spinal cord," said Steward, anatomy & neurobiology professor and director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UCI. "Paralysis and loss of function from spinal cord injury has been considered untreatable, but our discovery points the way toward a potential therapy to induce regeneration of nerve connections following spinal cord injury in people."
According to Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation data, about 2 percent of Americans have some form of paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury, which is due primarily to the interruption of connections between the brain and spinal cord.
An injury the size of a grape can lead to complete loss of function below the level of injury. For example, an injury to the neck can cause paralysis of arms and legs, loss of ability to feel below the shoulders, inability to control the bladder and bowel, loss of sexual function, and secondary health risks including susceptibility to urinary tract infections, pressure sores and blood clots due to an inability to move the legs.
"These devastating consequences occur even though the spinal cord below the level of injury is intact," Steward noted. "All these lost functions could be restored if we could find a way to regenerate the connections that were damaged."
He and his colleagues are now studying whether the PTEN-deletion treatment leads to actual restoration of motor function in mice with spinal cord injury. Further research will explore the optimal timeframe and drug-delivery system for the therapy.
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Kai Liu, Yi Lu, Andrea Tedeschi, Kevin Kyungsuk Park, Duo Jin, Bin Cai, Bengang Xu and Lauren Connolly of Harvard; Jae Lee of UCSD; and Rafer Willenberg and Ilse Sears-Kraxberger of UCI also contributed to the study, which was supported by the Wings for Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, the International Spinal Research Trust, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke, and a private contribution to the Reeve-Irvine Research Center.
About the Reeve-Irvine Research Center: The mission of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center is to find new treatments for spinal cord injury through the collaborative research and educational efforts of prominent scientists and clinicians both at UCI and around the world. For more information, visit www.reeve.uci.edu.
About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UCI is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County's largest employer, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.9 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.
News Radio: UCI maintains on campus an ISDN line for conducting interviews with its faculty and experts. Use of this line is available for a fee to radio news programs/stations that wish to interview UCI faculty and experts. Use of the ISDN line is subject to availability and approval by the university.
Contact: Tom Vasich 949-824-6455 tmvasich@uci.edu
Elizabeth Andrews 617-919-3103 elizabeth.andrews@childrens.harvard.edu
UCI maintains an online directory of faculty available as experts to the media. To access, visit www.today.uci.edu/experts. For UCI breaking news, visit www.zotwire.uci.edu.
Now that The Won has been elected Christopher Reeves really could walk...
Certainly having their day in the sciences. Doing the work Americans won't do.
Good stuff....thanks for the ping.
I forgot about that.
"Feel the healin' power of my change!"
actually, europeon stock used to be highly intelligent...but I think we've breeded downward.....anyone agree?
Euro peon surely describes my heritage.
I don't believe that intelligence is understood or can be measured. Some genetic stocks, like those of China, have had periods when they've seemed the smartest of peoples and periods when they've seemed among the dullest.
Given a choice between total paralysis and some tumors that might well kill me, well ~ tumors gotta’ row!
breeded = bred.
Grandma Squarebarb the snarky Grammar Nun.
What you must always remember is that much of East Asia has been so nasty for so long that only the smartest folks could escape ~ and here they are.
I take the ambition some have to bring in more millions of uneducated and ineducable Latinos to be based in some sort of strange anti-Asian demiurge. The pro-illegal alien crowd want to destroy the system that has provided us with the smart people for the last three centuries.
You’re Welcome, Ernest!
THX FOR THE PING.
INTERESTING.
You’re Welcome, Quix!
The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has limits.
PTEN deletion enhances the regenerative ability of adult corticospinal neurons
I linked the whole article from the link after the end of the abstract.
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.2603.html
A PTEN inhibitor might do the trick. Two other threads have mtor as a keyword, one each from decimon and me.
I nominate Charles Krauthammer as the first recipient (after it is perfected, of course..)
The man is brilliant.
Thanks for the ping!
Don’t apologize
It’s the other humans who have custody, etc. or other
authority over the handicapped who must be kept in control
UCI badly needs this boost, after all the disastrous publicity from their bone marrow transplant program.
Way to go guys!
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