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Possible Cure For MS Turns Common Skin Cells Into Working Brain Cells

Posted by samzenpus on from the from-one-thing-to-another dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have discovered a way to convert ordinary skin cells into myelinating cells, or brain cells that have been destroyed in patients with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and other myelin disorders. The research, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, may now enable 'on demand' production of myelinating cells, which insulate and protect neurons to facilitate the delivery of brain impulses to the rest of the body."

18 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. So the next quesiton is.... by plazman30 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now that you've made myelin, how do you get it to stick to actual damaged neurons and/or brian cells. If you inject it in there, is it naturally just going to bind to damaged cells?

    1. Re:So the next quesiton is.... by OG · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The abstract indicates that the researchers injected the induced oligodendrocytes into mouse brains and they bound to unmyelinated neurons. I don't have access to the article, and I'm not going to pay for it, but perhaps someone else can provide the technical details. Still, it's a question that the authors address.

    2. Re:So the next quesiton is.... by interkin3tic · · Score: 2
      They used "shiverer" mice, a mutant line in which myelin of the central nervous system is affected, and these cells appear to rescue it.

      We studied the ability of 8TF-induced MEFs to myelinate axons of hypomyelinated shiverer (Mbpshi/shi) mice, which completely lack MBP and compact myelin and serve as a model of congenital dysmyelinating disorders...ultrastructural analysis by electron microscopy showed that the cells generated multilayered compact myelin sheaths around hypomyelinated shiverer host axons in slice culture

      If you're wondering, here is a link video showing why they're called "shiverer." Be forewarned, it's a little disturbing to watch them. I say that having done mouse brain research myself. The reeler mice I've seen in person (Er, seen in mouse) are actually kind of cute, they stagger around like they're drunk (not the best video, but here. These shivering mice on the other hand, I don't know. I just want to put them out of their misery.

      Anyway, with that warning here's the depressing link of what happens when your mouse doesn't have enough myelin in its spinal cord.

    3. Re:So the next quesiton is.... by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      PS. Got off topic there. Anyway, here is the figure in question, I tested it on my phone, that shouldn't be behind a paywall. LM and N are the panels to focus on. It appears that not all the axons are myelinated, but the ones that are look like they're completely ensheathed.

      Searching for "shiver" I didn't see anything about a reduction in shivers in the treated mice. That would have been pretty huge had it rescued the "symptoms" of the condition, so I'm going to assume that at this first pass it wasn't enough to "fix" these mice enough to detect. It would have been really nice had it done that, but this is just a first pass. Hopefully subsequent studies will refine the process to the point where most of the axons are remyelinated, then it may actually fix MS or other diseases.

  2. Re:Obligatory? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Q: How did Microsoft break Volkswagen's world record?
    A: Volkswagen only made 22 million bugs!

  3. Re:Obligatory? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2, Funny

    Here's a first pass:

    What do you get when you cure brain disease?

    No more windows 8.

  4. So now the hungry Zombies will cry: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Skkiiiinnnnnnn...."

  5. Cautiously Optimistic by organgtool · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article wasn't clear on whether or not this could reverse the damage caused by MS or whether it would just prevent further damage. I know several people that suffer from this disease and it's utterly horrible. The worst case is my uncle who went from being in peak physical condition to requiring a cane or wheelchair to get around. He now stutters when he speaks, has trouble holding his head up, and can't keep his eyes still enough to even focus on words while trying to read. This disease slowly takes away all of your faculties and strips you of all autonomy and independence and a cure for it can't come fast enough.

    1. Re:Cautiously Optimistic by stereoroid · · Score: 4, Funny

      The damage done in MS is to the nervous system, and all that new myelin could do would be to prevent further damage. That's still very much worth pursuing if it allows a healing process to take place - whether natural or another man-made therapy.

      --
      (this is not a .sig)
    2. Re:Cautiously Optimistic by Graydyn+Young · · Score: 2

      Even if it only works as a preventative, it could be a huge step up from current treatment. The current standard for treating MS is interferon injections, which are expensive, not very effective, and come with a host of nasty side effects.

    3. Re:Cautiously Optimistic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Untrue. The symptoms of MS are due to demyelination. Current treatments reduce the inflammatory response and therefore further myelin destruction but do nothing to rebuild the destroyed myelin. Remyelinating the neurons is the missing step in MS treatment.

    4. Re:Cautiously Optimistic by Willuz · · Score: 4, Informative

      Exactly right, this is just a way of repairing damage already caused by MS and does not "cure" or slow the disease at all. Still an important step though, since damage is permanent for most people.

      It's easiest to think of MS as mice chewing the insulation off the wiring in your car resulting in short circuits and lost signals. Curing the disease would be getting rid of the mice. This treatment is like taking your car to the shop to have the wiring replaced, but the car is still full of mice that will eat the wiring again. The current treatments for MS just put the mice (mostly) to sleep, but they're still there and could awake at any time and some people's mice are more resistant than others.

    5. Re:Cautiously Optimistic by ceoyoyo · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not going to prevent further damage. This certainly isn't a cure or potential cure for MS, but if it works well it might help fix some of the damage that's been done. Some. Axons die in MS, and this won't replace them. There's good evidence that a lot of the actual damage is due to neuronal damage and not a failure to remyelinate.

    6. Re:Cautiously Optimistic by meerling · · Score: 2

      In your analogy, you need both to get rid of the mice, and repair the wiring.
      This is part of the solution.
      I have some friends with MS, and even this partial patch job would be a vast improvement, even if it has to be repeated occasionally.

  6. And I wonder by kilodelta · · Score: 2

    Since ALS aka amaotrophic lateral sclerosis is caused by de-myelnizing of the nerve fibers - you could probably cure that too.

    And since I have a slight risk this is good news.

    1. Re:And I wonder by chooks · · Score: 2

      FYI - ALS is primarily a neurodegenerative disease where the neurons themselves are dying off and not a demyelinating disease where the neurons remain intact but loose their myelin sheath.

      --
      -- The Genesis project? What's that?
  7. Re:10 LET M$ = "Microsoft" by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

    Maybe I'm tired, or just having a slow day. The joke nearly went "whoosh" for me. Good one though!

    The residents of Silicon Valley are more confused than usual after a billboard campaign by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society of America used this line in an ad slogan "MS, it's not a software company"... exploiting the fame of a certain company to draw attention to an altogether worthier cause.
    Requests to comment on the campaign have been met by a surly silence by Microsoft, which doesn't relish the association of ideas but is painfully aware that it can't afford to appear insensitive over such an issue.
    Seasoned information technology professionals will have no trouble telling the two MSs apart One is a debilitating and surprisingly widespread affliction that renders the sufferer barely able to perform the simplest task.
    The other is a disease.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  8. Nature Article discussion by Guppy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just a quick walk-through of the first section of the paper:

    Cell-based therapies for myelin disorders, such as multiple sclerosis and leukodystrophies, require technologies to generate functional oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. Here we describe direct conversion of mouse embryonic and lung fibroblasts to induced oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (iOPCs) using sets of either eight or three defined transcription factors.

    The Slashdot summary and 3rd party source says "skin cells", but the paper indicates the specific cell type used were "mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs)"; specifically, they were MEFs isolated from a transgenic mouse lineage where a specific transactivator had already been engineered into their genome. This transactivator was designed to work together with the introduced Lentivirus vector (a retrovirus, member of the genus to which HIV belongs), carrying the Oligodendrocyte Progenitor Cell (OPC) transcription factors.
    In a later section of the paper, they perform a similar process with "mouse lung fibroblasts" (MLFs), and also test several different combinations of transcription factors.

    iOPCs exhibit a bipolar morphology and global gene expression profile consistent with bona fide OPCs. They can be expanded in vitro for at least five passages while retaining the ability to differentiate into multiprocessed oligodendrocytes.

    Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck. Can be expanded into a flock while still retaining duck-ness.

    When transplanted to hypomyelinated mice, iOPCs are capable of ensheathing host axons and generating compact myelin. Lineage conversion of somatic cells to expandable iOPCs provides a strategy to study the molecular control of oligodendrocyte lineage identity and may facilitate neurological disease modeling and autologous remyelinating therapies.

    Induced OPC cells integrate into their normal niche, insulating neurons (at least at the cellular level). Didn't see much discussion of whether or not it altered the hypomyelinated ("shiver" mouse) phenotype.