(Press-News.org) Researchers at the Beihang University School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, led by Dr. Yubo Fan, have discovered that Biphasic Electrical stimulation (BES), a non-chemical procedure, may be used as a strategy for preventing cell apoptosis in stem cell-based transplantation therapy. The article describing their studies will be published in the August 2013 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine. The scientists believe that their technique will be used for spinal cord injury patients in the future.
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a serious disease of the central nervous system. According to Spinal Cord Injury Facts & Statistics, 250,000 Americans are spinal cord injured patients. Approximately 52% of spinal cord injured individuals are considered as paraplegic, and 47% patients are quadriplegic. In addition, 11,000 new injuries occur each year, and 82% are male.
Transplantation of Stem Cells is a potential clinical therapy for repair and regeneration of injured spinal cord, and brings new hope for patients. However, the survival rate of transplanted cells is relatively low because the cells are particularly vulnerable to apoptosis in the spinal cord. Factors proposed for causing such low survival include immune reactions, limited trophic factors and hypoxia. It appears that a lack of adequate growth factors plays an important role in the survival of transplanted cells. "We've shown for the very first time that BES may provide insight into preventing growth factor deprivation-triggered apoptosis in olfactory bulb neural precursor cells (OB NPCs)," said Yubo Fan, professor of Biological Science and Medical Engineering at Beihang and senior author. "These findings suggest that BES may thus be used as a strategy to improve cell survival and prevent cell apoptosis in stem cell-based transplantation therapies," Fan explained. The results may guide future efforts to restore functions lost after spinal cord injury.
The team of researchers investigated the protective effects of BES on growth factor-deprived apoptosis in OB NPCs. The NPCs were exposed to 12 h of BES. The results were that BES enhanced cell survival and prevented the apoptosis of NPCs caused by growth factor deprivation. The anti-apoptotic effect of BES was dependent on the activation of the PI3K/Akt signaling cascade and an increase in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) production. "What was especially surprising and exciting was that a non-chemical procedure can prevent apoptosis in stem cells therapy for spinal cord injury patients," Fan said. "How BES precisely regulates the survival of exogenous stem cells is still unknown, but will be an extremely novel area of research on spinal cord injury in the future," Dr. Fan added.
Dr. Steven R. Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine, said "The fact that Biphasic Electrical Stimulation can improve the survival of neural precursor cells is truly exciting and will provide the basis for future studies that could lead to novel therapies for patients with spinal cord injury. I look forward to future advances in this field".
###
Experimental Biology and Medicine is a journal dedicated to the publication of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the biomedical sciences. The journal was first established in 1903. Experimental Biology and Medicine is the journal of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine. To learn about the benefits of society membership visit http://www.sebm.org. If you are interested in publishing in the journal please visit http://ebm.sagepub.com/.
Biphasic electrical stimulation: A strategy may bring hope to spinal cord injury patients
2013-08-24
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Teen driver music preferences increase errors and distractibility -- Ben-Gurion U. study
2013-08-23
Beer-Sheva, Israel, August 23, 2013 – Teens listening to their preferred music while driving commit a greater number of errors and miscalculations, according to a new study from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researchers that will be published in the October issue of Accident Analysis and Prevention.
Male novice drivers in particular make more frequent and serious mistakes listening to their preferred music than their less aggressive, female counterparts, the researchers noted.
The BGU study evaluated 85 young novice drivers accompanied by a researcher/driving instructor. ...
UCLA researchers invent portable device for common kidney tests
2013-08-23
A lightweight and field-portable device invented at UCLA that conducts kidney tests and transmits data through a smartphone attachment may significantly reduce the need for frequent office visits by people with diabetes and others with chronic kidney ailments.
The smartphone-based device was developed in the research lab of Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute. Weighing about one-third of a pound, the ...
Receptor may aid spread of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in brain
2013-08-23
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a way that corrupted, disease-causing proteins spread in the brain, potentially contributing to Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and other brain-damaging disorders.
The research identifies a specific type of receptor and suggests that blocking it may aid treatment of theses illnesses. The receptors are called heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs).
"Many of the enzymes that create HSPGs or otherwise help them function are good targets for drug treatments," said senior author Marc I. ...
University of Hawaii Cancer Center researcher's discovery
2013-08-23
HONOLULU, HI – University of Hawaii Cancer Center Researcher Song-Yi Park, PhD, along with her colleagues, recently discovered that a greater consumption of fruits and vegetables may lower the risk of invasive bladder cancer in women.
The investigation was conducted as part of the Multiethnic Cohort (MEC) Study, established in 1993 to assess the relationships among dietary, lifestyle, genetic factors, and cancer risk. Park and her fellow researcher's analyzed data collected from 185,885 older adults over a period of 12.5 years, of which 581 invasive bladder cancer cases ...
Sea ice decline spurs the greening of the Arctic
2013-08-23
Fairbanks, Alaska— Sea ice decline and warming trends are changing the vegetation in nearby arctic coastal areas, according to two University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists.
Uma Bhatt, an associate professor with UAF's Geophysical Institute, and Skip Walker, a professor at UAF's Institute of Arctic Biology, contributed to a recent review of research on the response of plants, marine life and animals to declining sea ice in the Arctic.
"Our thought was to see if sea ice decline contributed to greening of the tundra along the coastal areas," Bhatt said. "It's a relatively ...
Underwater intelligence
2013-08-23
VIDEO:
This shows confidence regions (grey contours) for the location of a fish at Palmyra Atoll, along with home range (green line) estimated by the state-space model.
Click here for more information.
There's no "Google Maps" for finding fish. The radio signals that are the backbone of traditional GPS cannot pass through seawater. But sound travels remarkably well, so scientists often use acoustic telemetry to estimate an individual fish's location. That means attaching ...
Architecture of chromosomes: A key for success or failure
2013-08-23
In a pioneer study published in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature Communications*, a research team at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC; Portugal), led by Miguel Godinho Ferreira in collaboration with Isabel Gordo, show for the first time that chromosomes rearrangements (such as inversions or translocations) can provide advantages to the cells that harbor them depending on the environment they are exposed. This study contributes to better understand different biological problems such as: how cancer cells that have chromosomal rearrangements can outgrow ...
Out of Africa? New bamboo genera, mountain gorillas, and the origins of China's bamboos
2013-08-23
African mountain bamboos are something of a mystery, as nearly all bamboos are found in Asia or South America. Hidden away up mountains in the tropics where they provide food for gorillas, just as China's bamboos provide food for the Giant Panda, there are apparently only 2 species, and they had not been examined in very great detail, except by the gorillas, Fig. 1.
It had been thought that they were very closely related to the hundreds of similar bamboos in Asia, but their respective ranges are separated by thousands of miles. As flowering in bamboos is such a rare ...
New technique to help brain cancer patients
2013-08-23
A new scanning technique developed by Danish and US researchers reveals how susceptible patients with aggressive brain cancer are to the drugs they receive. The research behind the ground-breaking technique has just been published in Nature Medicine.
Each year sees 260 new cases of the most aggressive type of brain cancer in Denmark. Some patients survive only a few months, while others survive for 18 months. Only very few, 3.5%, are alive five years after their diagnosis. A new scanning technique can now reveal how the brain tumour responds to the drug administered:
"We ...
Gut taste mechanisms are abnormal in diabetes sufferers
2013-08-23
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have discovered that the way the gut "tastes" sweet food may be defective in sufferers of type 2 diabetes, leading to problems with glucose uptake.
This is the first time that abnormal control of so-called "sweet taste receptors" in the human intestine has been described by researchers. The work could have implications for a range of health and nutrition problems experienced by diabetes patients.
Dr Richard Young, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher in the University of Adelaide's Nerve-Gut Research Laboratory, says taste buds aren't ...