Scientists at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have developed a new technique in mice that transforms skin cells into the kind of brain cells that get damaged in diseases like multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and other diseases.
The research could have widespread therapeutic application to myelin disorders. Better treatments for these diseases are needed, especially since current therapies on the market do not repair the damage of immune attacks on myelin sheaths, a material that insulates neurons. In diseases like MS, cerebral palsy and rare genetic disorders called leukodystrophies, myelin sheaths are damaged and cannot be replaced.
Researchers used a process known as cell reprogramming to convert fibroblasts, a commonly found structural cell in the skin and in most organs, into oligodendrocytes, the type of cell responsible for myelinating the neurons of the brain. Then, researchers manipulated the levels of three naturally occurring proteins to induce fibroblast cells to become precursors of oligodendrocytes. In myelin diseases, oligodendrocytes are damaged or become dysfunctional, and the insulating myelin coating that normally coats nerves is lost.
The team rapidly generated billions of these oligodendrocytes, which were able to regenerate new myelin coatings around nerves after being transplanted to mice. Previously, oligodendrocytes could only be obtained from fetal tissue or pluripotent stem cells. The research appears in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
"The progression of stem cell biology is providing opportunities for clinical translation that a decade ago would not have been possible," said Dr. Stanton Gerson, a professor at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and director of the National Center for Regenerative Medicine and the University Hospitals Case Medical Center Seidman Cancer Center, in a statement.
Researchers say the next step is to use human cells in a lab setting to demonstrate feasibility and safety.
- here's the press release
- read the Cleveland Plain-Dealer story
- get the research abstract
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