Milestone in the regeneration of brain cells: Supportive cells
generate new nerve cells
Prof. Dr. Magdalena Götz, director of the Institute of Stemm Cell
Research, GSF – National Research Center for Environment and Health.
Photo: Bayer AG.
[High resolution image 300 dpi]
Neuherberg, 20 August. 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.
Neurons (green) generated from glia cells after expression of the
transcription factors Neurogenin2; blue: nuclei. Photo: ISF. [High
resolution image 300 dpi]
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.
Original publication: 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/
Abstract at PubMed: More...
Homepage of the Institute of Stem Cell Research: More...
Presse release as pdf file: More...
Contact the GSF Press Office:
GSF - National Research Centre for Environment and Health
Communications
Tel: + 49 89 3187-2460
Fax. + 49 89 3187-3324
E-mail: oea@gsf.de
Neuherberg, 20 August 2007
http://www.gsf.
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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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