Pathways-for-recovering-damaged-neurons-in-the-eye -and-brain recognized

The damaged or death of neurons, both in the brain and in the eye, can lead to a number of human neurodegenerative disorders, from blindness to Parkinson's disease. Current treatments for these disorders can only slow the progression of the disease because once neurons die, they cannot be replaced.

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