(Press-News.org) WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Oct. 12, 2012 – Scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have taken the first steps to create neural-like stem cells from muscle tissue in animals. Details of the work are published in two complementary studies published in the September online issues of the journals Experimental Cell Research and Stem Cell Research.
"Reversing brain degeneration and trauma lesions will depend on cell therapy, but we can't harvest neural stem cells from the brain or spinal cord without harming the donor," said Osvaldo Delbono, M.D., Ph.D., professor of internal medicine at Wake Forest Baptist and lead author of the studies.
"Skeletal muscle tissue, which makes up 50 percent of the body, is easily accessible and biopsies of muscle are relatively harmless to the donor, so we think it may be an alternative source of neural-like cells that potentially could be used to treat brain or spinal cord injury, neurodegenerative disorders, brain tumors and other diseases, although more studies are needed."
In an earlier study, the Wake Forest Baptist team isolated neural precursor cells derived from skeletal muscle of adult transgenic mice (PLOS One, Feb.3, 2011).
In the current research, the team isolated neural precursor cells from in vitro adult skeletal muscle of various species including non-human primates and aging mice, and showed that these cells not only survived in the brain, but also migrated to the area of the brain where neural stem cells originate.
Another issue the researchers investigated was whether these neural-like cells would form tumors, a characteristic of many types of stem cells. To test this, the team injected the cells below the skin and in the brains of mice, and after one month, no tumors were found.
"Right now, patients with glioblastomas or other brain tumors have very poor outcomes and relatively few treatment options," said Alexander Birbrair, a doctoral student in Delbono's lab and first author of these studies. "Because our cells survived and migrated in the brain, we may be able to use them as drug-delivery vehicles in the future, not only for brain tumors but also for other central nervous system diseases."
In addition, the Wake Forest Baptist team is now conducting research to determine if these neural-like cells also have the capability to become functioning neurons in the central nervous system.
###
Co-authors of the studies are Tan Zhang, Ph.D., Zhong-Min Wang, M.S., Maria Laura Messi, M.S., Akiva Mintz, M.D., Ph.D., of Wake Forest Baptist, and Grigori N. Enikolopov, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
The present studies were supported by a PUSH grant from the Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center to Drs. Akiva Mintz and Osvaldo Delbono; National Institute on Aging contract AG13934 and AG15820; the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center grant P30-AG21332, and the National Institute of Aging grant R01AG040209.
(October 12, 2012) In a new study published in Frontiers, Dr Timothy Durazzo and colleagues from the San Francisco VA Medical Center and University of California, San Francisco, expand upon their decade of research showing that smoking while kicking the alcohol habit impairs memory, learning and other cognitive skills--ultimately making it more difficult to weather the long storm of sobriety.
Cigarettes, substance abuse and the military
"Given our strong and consistent research findings in both Veterans and civilians on the ill-effects of chronic smoking, we truly hope ...
Despite Pittsburgh's mass exodus of young people in the 1980s, data released today by the University of Pittsburgh's University Center for Social and Urban Research and PittsburghTODAY show that over the past five years Pittsburgh has seen a seven percent influx of young people ages 20-34.
The report, Young Adults Report 2012, draws the most comprehensive profile to date of the young men and women in the 32-county Pittsburgh region. Findings are based onPittsburghTODAY's reporting, as well as on an extensive regional survey and focus groups conducted jointly by the University ...
Lance Armstrong's doping scandal may be considered by U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) as "more extensive than any previously revealed in professional sports history," but a new editorial in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) by USADA's Larry D. Bowers shows that it is clearly not the first. From early athletes who used rat poison and heroin to fight fatigue to modern Olympians who perform under the ever-present shadow of high tech hormones, stimulants and steroids, this editorial lays out both the history and the science behind athletic "doping" scandals. Bowers ...
Highlights
In the largest study of its kind, a variant within the multidrug resistance 1 (MDR-1) gene in kidney transplant donors was linked to a 69% increased risk for long-term failure of transplanted organs.
This variant affects the expression of the protein that the MDR-1 gene encodes, which pumps drugs out of cells. (Immunosuppressant drugs are critical for preventing organ rejection but are also toxic to the kidneys.)
Washington, DC (October 11, 2012) — A single genetic variant in kidney donors' cells may help determine whether their transplanted organs will survive ...
Boston, MA -- New research that combines cell phone data from 15 million people in Kenya with detailed information on the regional incidence of malaria has revealed, on the largest scale so far, how human travel patterns contribute to the disease's spread. The findings from researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and seven other institutions indicate that malaria, in large part, emanates from Kenya's Lake Victoria region and spreads east, chiefly toward the capital, Nairobi.
The study appears in the October 12, 2012 issue of the journal Science.
"This ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A group of researchers have proposed creating a new web-based data network to help researchers and policymakers worldwide turn existing knowledge into real-world applications and technologies and improve science and innovation policy.
Researchers around the world have created datasets that, if interlinked with other datasets and made more broadly available could provide the needed foundation for policy and decision makers. But these datasets are spread across countries, scientific disciplines and data providers, and appear in a variety of inconsistent ...
MADISON — Scientists have identified three neighboring genes that make soybeans resistant to the most damaging disease of soybean. The genes exist side-by-side on a stretch of chromosome, but only give resistance when that stretch is duplicated several times in the plant.
"Soybean cyst nematode is the most important disease of soybean, according to yield loss, worldwide, year after year," says senior author Andrew Bent, professor of plant pathology at University of Wisconsin-Madison. "As we try to feed a world that is going from 6 billion toward 9 billion people, soybean ...
Sophia Antipolis, 12 October 2012: Urgent actions including smoking bans in public places, salt restrictions and improved blood pressure control are needed to fight rising cardiovascular disease in China. Half of male physicians in China smoke and they can lead the way to healthy lifestyles by kicking the habit.
Cardiovascular disease is the top cause of death in China and causes more than 40% of all deaths.
"Every year three million Chinese people die from cardiovascular disease and every 10 seconds there is one death from CVD in China," said Professor Dayi Hu, chief ...
The relatively new field in microbiology that focuses on quorum sensing has been making strides in understanding how bacteria communicate and cooperate. Quorum sensing describes the bacterial communication between cells that allows them to recognize and react to the size of their surrounding cell population. While a cell's output of extracellular products, or "public goods," is dependent on the size of its surrounding population, scientists have discovered that quorum sensing, a type of bacterial communication, controls when cells release these public goods into their environments. ...
Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have used 20 years of satellite data to reveal a geological oddity unlike any seen on Earth.
At the border of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile sits the Altiplano-Puna plateau in the central Andes region, home to the largest active magma body in Earth's continental crust and known for a long history of massive volcanic eruptions. A study led by Yuri Fialko of Scripps and Jill Pearse of the Alberta Geological Survey has revealed that magma is forming a big blob in the middle of the crust, pushing up the earth's ...
