Using genetic engineering, researchers at UT Southwestern and Indiana University have reprogrammed scar-forming cells in mouse spinal cords to create new nerve cells, spurring recovery after spinal cord injury.
Credit: UT Southwestern Medical Center
Using genetic engineering, researchers at UT Southwestern and Indiana University have reprogrammed scar-forming cells in mouse spinal cords to create new nerve cells, spurring recovery after spinal cord injury. The findings, published online today in
Cell Stem Cell, could offer hope for the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who suffer a spinal cord injury each year.
Cells in some body tissues proliferate after injury, replacing dead or damaged cells as part of healing. However, explains study leader Chun-Li Zhang, Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and a W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research at UTSW, the spinal cord typically does not generate new neurons after injury - a key roadblock to recovery. Because the spinal cord acts as a signal relay between the brain and the rest of the body, he adds, its inability to self-repair permanently halts communication between these two areas, leading to paralysis, loss of sensation,
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IMAGE: Above are fluorescent images of genetically identical yeast cells, marked for some of the biomarkers that UT Southwestern researchers discovered help to predict cell fate. The yellow is the nucleus,. view more
Credit: UT Southwestern Medical Center
DALLAS - Jan. 11, 2021 - A set of biomarkers not traditionally associated with cell fate can accurately predict how genetically identical cells behave differently under stress, according to a UT Southwestern study. The findings, published by
Cell Reports as a Dec. 1 cover story, could eventually lead to more predictable responses to pharmaceutical treatments.
Groups of the same types of cells exposed to the same stimuli often display different responses. Some of these responses have been linked to slight differences in genetics between individual cells. However, even genetically identical cells can diverge in behavior.