Motor neurons derived from embryonic stem cells mimic the progress of familial ALS Monday, 23 February 2009 Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a devastating condition in which motor neuron degeneration causes progressive loss of movement and muscle tone, leading to death. Overcoming the limited success of previous models, a report published in Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), describes how neurons can be derived from human stem cells, and engineered to mimic inherited ALS. Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles developed an optimized protocol to generate motor neurons from human embryonic stem cells (ES cells), which express normal or mutant forms of the SOD-1 gene, which is linked to inherited, familial ALS. Resulting cells exhibit hallmark characteristics of motor nerve cells, and neurons expressing mutant SOD-1 display abnormalities typical of ALS. Defects included shortened cell projections and a reduced life span compared to cells containing the normal SOD-1 gene. This human cell-derived model of ALS provides a new method of studying this disease and testing novel therapeutics. This is especially helpful as only one drug is approved to help slow ALS progression, and animal models currently used in drug development have had limited success. Additionally, this research may aid other gene-linked neurodegenerative diseases, as they too may benefit from studies in a human cell-derived model. Reference: Human embryonic stem cell-derived motor neurons expressing SOD1 mutants exhibit typical signs of motor neuron degeneration linked to ALS Saravanan Karumbayaram, Theresa K. Kelly, Andres A. Paucar, Anne J. T. Roe, Joy A. Umbach, Andrew Charles, Steven A. Goldman, Harley I. Kornblum, and Martina Wiedau-Pazos Dis. Model. Mech. published online before print February 23, 2009, doi:10.1242/dmm.002113 ......... ZenMaster
For more on stem cells and cloning, go to CellNEWS at http://cellnews-blog.blogspot.com/ and http://www.geocities.com/giantfideli/index.html
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2 comments:
How are the stem cells "engineered" to mimic inherited ALS. Are they inducing a signal transduction pathway? This potential treatment could potentially reach far beyond Lou Gehrig's Disease. I am also curious of what the side effects have been of the animal models with limited success. I would be curious to see if the transduction pathway for this disease affects any other genes, or if there are any more problems caused by this mutant gene.
They transfected the cells with various mutant forms of SOD-1 gene (superoxide dismutase 1). This is not a signalling molecule, but is known to be linked to familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). You can read more in the article above.
ZenMaster
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