Medical research teams working at Boston’s Children Hospital and Harvard University will present reports at the upcoming Society of Neuroscience meeting that they have made a major advancement in the treatment of damaged nerve cells. Using a protein called inosine, the researchers were able to cause nerve cells in rats to sprout new axons which met and formed synapses to send messages to each other.
The traditional problem with damaged nerve cells is that such cells generally don’t regenerate. This is generally considered a “it’s not a bug it’s a feature” kind of adaptation — the last thing you want, after all, is out of control growth of cells in the central nervous system. Unfortunately, that also has made it difficult to repair spinal cord injuries or loss of brain cells from stroke because the cells don’t regrow.
Using inosine, which occurs naturally at low levels in the brain the researchers were able to flip the “master switch” that regulates repair of nerve cells. “The big surprise,” Dr. Larry Benowitz told The BBC, “is that inosine regulates all the other genes involved in nerve repair. It activates the ‘master switch’ if you like.”
The possibilities for this technology are amazing. Boston Life Sciences, which sponsored the research, is working to develop inosine for use in stroke victims and could have potential applications in treat a variety of brain injuries and degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, as well as for treating spinal cord injuries that lead to paralysis. “It is a very exciting and fast-moving field,” Benowitz said. “In five to ten years we may have an effective treatment that restores a lot of function after major spinal injury, not 100% but a lot better than anything we currently have.”
Especially since the information gleaned from the way inosine works in rats is giving researchers important clues about the underlying genes involved in nervous system functioning and repair. Benowitz said that his team believes it has identified the gene responsible for repair and future research will clone the gene and dig down further into how it works.
It is amazing how quickly medical knowledge advances thanks to animal researcher.
Source:
‘Key discovery’ in nerve repair. David Whitehouse, The BBC, November 1, 2000.
Researchers say find key nerve injury protein. Reuters, November 1, 2000.