Now, a team of
researchers from the University of Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins University, Ohio
State University and the University of Florida have identified gene networks
that regulate the process responsible for determining whether neurons will
regenerate in certain animals, such as Zebra-fish.
David
Hyde, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Notre Dame and
colleagues, said: "This study is evidence of the principle, showing that
it is possible to regenerate neurons in the retina. We now believe that the
process of regeneration of neurons in the brain will be similar." - Author
of the study.
For
the study, published in the journal Science, researchers have assigned the
genes of animals that have the ability to regenerate neurons in the retina. For
example, when the retina of the zebrafish's retina is damaged, cells called muller-glial
go through a process known as reprogramming. During reprogramming, muller glial
cells will change their genetic expression to become like progenitor cells or
cells that are used during the early development of the organism. Therefore,
these progenitor-like cells can now become any cell necessary to repair the
damaged retina.
Like
zebra-fish, people also possess Mueller's glial cells. However, when the human
retina is damaged, Mueller's glial cells respond to the gliosis, a process that
does not allow them to reprogram.
After
identifying the changing animal processes to recover from retinal damage, they
had to decode if the reprogramming and gliosis processes were similar. Will
Mueller's glia cells follow the same path in renewable and non-renewable
animals or will the pathways be completely different?. Hyde stated who is also the director of the
Kina Center for Zebrafish Research in Notre Dame. This was really important,
because if we were to be able to use Mueller's glia cells to regenerate neurons
in people's retinas, we need to understand whether it's about redirecting
Mueller's current glia pathway or if it will require a completely different
processing pathway.
The research team found that the renovation process only requires the organism to
"restart" early developments. In addition, researchers have been able
to prove that during the regeneration of the zebra-fish, the glia cells also
pass through the binding of the gliosis, which means that organisms able to
regenerate neurons in the retina follow a similar path to animals that cannot.
While the gene network in the zebra-fish was able to transfer Mueller's glia
cells from the molasses to the reprogrammed state, the gene network in the
mouse model prevented Mueller's glia cells from reprogramming.
From there,
the researchers were able to modify Mueller's glia cells to a similar condition
that prevented reprogramming with a mouse model that regenerates some neurons
in the retina.
Next, the
researchers will aim to determine the number of gene regulation networks
responsible for the regeneration of neurons and genes responsible for
regulating regeneration exactly within the network.
original story Published on University of Notre dame
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