Milestone In The Regeneration Of Brain Cells
Aug. 22, 2007
Science Daily — The research group of Prof. Dr. Magdalena Götz at the
Institute of Stem Cell Research of the GSF – National Research Centre
for Environment and Health, and the Ludwig Maximilians University,
Munich, has achieved an additional step for the potential replacement
of damaged brain cells after injury or disease: functional nerve
cells can be generated from astroglia, a type of supportive cells in
the brain by means of special regulator proteins.
The majority of cells in the human brain are not nerve cells but star-
shaped glia cells, the so called "astroglia". "Glia means "glue",
explains Götz. "As befits their name, until now these cells have been
regarded merely as a kind of "putty" keeping the nerve cells together.
A couple of years ago, the research group had been already able to
prove that these glia cells function as stem cells during
development. This means that they are able to differentiate into
functional nerve cells. However, this ability gets lost in later
phases of development, so that even after an injury to the adult
brain glial cells are unable to generate any more nerve cells.
In order to be able to reverse this development, the team studied
what molecular switches are essential for the creation of nerve cells
from glial cells during development. These regulator proteins are
introduced into glial cells from the postnatal brain, which indeed
respond by switching on the expression of neuronal proteins.
In his current work, Dr. Benedikt Berninger, was now able to show
that single regulator proteins are quite sufficient to generate new
functional nerve cells from glia cells. The transition from glia-to-
neuron could be followed live at a time-lapse microscope. It was
shown that glia cells need some days for the reprogramming until they
take the normal shape of a nerve cell. "These new nerve cells then
have also the typical electrical properties of normal nerve cells",
emphasises Berninger. "We could show this by means of electrical
recordings".
"Our results are very encouraging, because the generation of
correctly functional nerve cells from postnatal glia cells is an
important step on the way to be able to replace functional nerve
cells also after injuries in the brain," underlines Magdalena Götz.
Reference: Benedikt Berninger, Marcos R. Costa, Ursula Koch, Timm
Schroeder, Bernd Sutor, Benedikt Grothe, and Magdalena
Götz: "Functional Properties of Neurons Derived from In Vitro
Reprogrammed Postnatal Astroglia" J. Neurosci. 2007 27: 8654-8664;
doi:10.1523/
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by GSF -
National Research Center for Environment and Health.
http://www.scienced
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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