Submitted by Armen Hareyan on Jun 7th, 2008
Researchers improve brain disorder survival rates in mice by injecting glial progenitor cells.
A team of researchers from University of Rochester Medical Center in New York examined mice with myelin-deficiency disorder and suggested that these mice can benefit from human neural stem cells - glial progenitor cells (GPCs). The cells were taken from human fetuses and then injected into mice brain.
GPCs injection managed to remyelinize demyelinated neurons. Myelin is a structure summarizing protein and fat, which surrounds long neuronal fibers - axons. Axons are sources for conscious and unconscious neural impulses. In other words, mylein is protecting axons and ensuring that nerve impulses can travel through entire nervous system safely.
Myelin damage causes various neurological disorders, such as multiple sclerosis. Myelin itself is being formed by oligodendrocytes cells, which are derived from GPCs. This is why researchers decided to study GPCs' affect on brain disorder.
Researchers examined mice with myelin shortage - called 'shiverer' - that generally die at age of 5 months and experience severe seizures. These mice were crossed with immunodeficient mice to make sure they will not reject GPCs injection. Mice were divided into 3 groups: 59 mice did not receive any treatment, 29 mice received 5 buffer brain injections just after birth, 26 mice received GPCs injections.
All 88 mice in first two groups died in 130 days after birth, 6 mice from the third group lived 160 days, another 4 mice from this group lived more than a year. All survived mice showed to have significantly improved myelin quality and protected nervous system, because injected GPCs managed to produce myelin, which later properly covered axons.
More research still needs to be done to understand why most of GPCs injected mice died and to ensure that the same technique will work for humans with brain disorder. Also, it is not clear yet if human fetal tissues can be used as disease treatment, because of serious ethical concerns.
Source:
Ruzanna Haroutiunyan 