(Press-News.org) UCLA scientists have discovered that exposing fetal neurons to higher than normal levels of a common immune protein leads to abnormal brain development in mice.
Published Oct. 14 in the online Journal of Neuroimmunology, the finding may provide new insights into factors contributing to human neurological disorders like schizophrenia and autism.
The researchers studied a protein called major histocompatibility complex, or MHC. The protein plays a dual role in the body: It helps the immune system to identify infected cells, and it enables neurons to make the right connections with each other in the brain.
"When neurons sense infection or damage to the brain, they produce more MHC," said Daniel Kaufman, professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "We wanted to explore whether higher levels of MHC affect how the brain develops."
Kaufman and his colleagues studied the development of mice whose neurons were genetically engineered to produce more MHC than normal.
Focusing on two key regions of the brain, the researchers looked at neurons that process vision and neurons involved in learning and memory. Next, the team compared these cells with their counterparts in normal mice.
What the scientists saw confirmed their hunch.
"The mice whose neurons produced extra MHC showed subtle changes in the connections between those neurons and other neurons in both brain regions," Kaufman said.
The UCLA finding could be of relevance in unraveling the origins of schizophrenia and autism, he noted.
"Infections in pregnant women have been associated with slightly higher risks for schizophrenia and autism in their children," he said. "Subtle changes in brain development due to excess MHC may explain this relationship."
Kaufman noted that female mice that contract infections during pregnancy also often give birth to offspring with behavioral abnormalities similar to autism and schizophrenia.
"We suspect that infection stimulates the mother's immune system to produce molecules that act like distress signals — they circulate through her blood and then enter the developing brain of the fetus," he said. "There, they alert neurons to make more MHC, which our study shows can lead to altered neuronal circuitry."
"This finding gives us greater insight into the role that MHC plays in the nervous system and may enhance our understanding of the factors that can contribute to neuropsychiatric disorders like autism and schizophrenia," Kaufman said.
INFORMATION:
The study was supported by funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Kaufman's co-authors included Zhongqi-Phyllis Wu, Lorraine Washburn, Tina Bilousova, Maia Boudzinskaia, Nathalie Escande-Beillard, Jyes Querubin, Hoa Dang, Cui-Wei Xie and Jide Tian, all of UCLA.
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.
END
Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School have gained insight into how different types of age-related hearing loss may occur in humans. The discovery could eventually help physicians develop drugs to combat progressive hearing loss. Their paper is published on October 14 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.
James Ervasti, Ph.D., and colleague Ben Perrin, Ph.D., studied how two very closely related genes contribute to hearing function in mice. Mutations in the same genes are associated with deafness in humans. The duo discovered two key cellular processes ...
1. One-Size-Fits-All Blood Pressure Recommendations Won't Suit All Dialysis Patients
Age, Race, and Diabetes Status Affect Blood Pressure's Link to Premature Death
Previous research indicates that mild to moderate hypertension may not increase dialysis patients' risk of dying prematurely. These findings contrast with those found in the general population and are generalized to diverse groups of patients with kidney disease. To see if age, race, and the presence or absence of diabetes affects the relationship between blood pressure and risk of premature death among dialysis ...
Dramatic flares and bursts of energy - activity previously thought reserved for only the strongest magnetized pulsars - has been observed emanating from a weakly magnetised, slowly rotating pulsar. The international team of astrophysicists who made the discovery believe that the source of the pulsar's power may be hidden deep within its surface.
Pulsars, or neutron stars, are the collapsed remains of massive stars. Although they are on average only about 30km in diameter, they have hugely powerful surface magnetic fields, billions of times that of our Sun.
The most ...
Rivers and streams supply the lifeblood of ecosystems across the globe, providing water for drinking and irrigation for humans as well as a wide array of life forms in rivers and streams from single-celled organisms all the way up to the fish humans eat. But humans and nature itself are making it tough on rivers to continue in their central role to support fish species, according to new research by a team of scientists including one from Arizona State University.
Globally, rivers and streams are being drained due to human use and climate change. These and other human ...
Although most people assume that tests are a way to evaluate learning, a wealth of research has shown that testing can actually improve learning, according to two researchers from Kent State University. Dr. Katherine Rawson, associate professor in Kent State's Department of Psychology, and former Kent State graduate student Mary Pyc publish their research findings in the Oct. 15, 2010, issue of the journal Science.
"Taking practice tests – particularly ones that involve attempting to recall something from memory – can drastically increase the likelihood that you'll be ...
The food chain - the number of organisms that feed on each other — in the world's streams and rivers depends more upon the size of the stream and whether the waterways flood or run dry than the amount of available food resources, Yale University and Arizona State University (ASU) researchers report online in the Oct. 14 issue of the journal Science Express.
The findings suggest that large predators in river systems will be threatened by increased variability in water flow induced by climate change. The research also helps settle an old debate among ecologists about ...
While not an outright failure, a 2010 goal set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for staunching the loss of the world's species fell far short of expectations for "The International Year of Biodiversity."
What does this mean for the 20 proposed 2020 goals being considered by the 10th conference of parties at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, on Oct. 18-29, 2010?
In the article "Ecosystem Services for 2020," published Oct. 15, 2010 in the journal Science, some of the world's foremost biodiversity experts assembled by the Paris-based ...
Researchers have developed a genetic tool in mice to speed the discovery of novel genes involved in cancer. The system – called PiggyBac – has already been used by the team to identify novel candidate cancer-causing genes.
This new development of the PiggyBac system makes it a powerful addition to the armoury of genetic methods available to researchers for picking apart the genetic causes of cancer. It will complement advances in genomics and genetics of cancer, by providing biological validation to human mutations identified by cancer genome sequencing.
The PiggyBac ...
A gene's location on a chromosome plays a significant role in shaping how an organism's traits vary and evolve, according to findings by genome biologists at New York University's Center for Genomic and Systems Biology and Princeton University's Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. Their research, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Science, suggests that evolution is less a function of what a physical trait is and more a result of where the genes that affect that trait reside in the genome.
Physical traits found in nature, such as height or eye ...
Discovery of a molecular switch that turns off the natural process of skin pigmentation may lead to a novel way of protecting the skin – activating the tanning process without exposure to cancer-causing UV radiation. In their report in the journal Genes & Development, researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cutaneous Biology Research Center (CBRC) describe how blocking the action of this switch – an enzyme called PDE-4D3 – in the skin of mice led to a significant increase in melanin production.
"The primary goal of inducing melanin production in human ...
