Cell Transplants May Benefit Children with Cerebral Palsy

Cell Transplants May Benefit Children with Cerebral Palsy
Monday, 19 April 2010

A unique cell type that supports and surrounds (ensheathes) neurons within the nose (olfactory system) known as olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), possess the ability to regenerate, are relatively easy to obtain, and have become prime candidates for transplantation to repair a number of lesions in the central nervous system (CNS). Transplanted OECs, known to retain exceptional plasticity and promote olfactory blood vessel growth while offering neuroprotection, have been demonstrated to be potentially useful for a number of neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

A group of Chinese researchers hypothesized that OECs might also hold promise for treating cerebral palsy (CP), a neurological disorder appearing in infancy or early childhood and characterized by its permanent effects on muscle movement. The study is published in issue 19(2) of Cell Transplantation.

"CP is a class of brain lesion in children with a wide variety of causes - from abnormal brain development to peri-natal injuries - and manifesting in progressive physical dysfunction," said corresponding author Dr. Hongyun Huang of the Beijing Rehabilitation Center.

"We conducted a randomized, controlled clinical trial with 33 volunteers, 14 of whom completed the six-month study, to determine if transplanted OECs were effective in treating children and adolescents with CP, given that CP shares many of the same features of other degenerative diseases."

According to the researchers, 83 percent of the children with CP that they examined had abnormal radiological findings, with white matter damage being the most common abnormality. Tissue loss, inadequate or delayed myelination, glial scars and shrunken white matter of the brain were also encountered. The white matter is made up of nerve fibres communicating between brain areas.

The research team's hypothesis and protocol was developed with prior knowledge of a key location in the brain's frontal lobes (defined as the "Key Point for Neural network Restoration (KPNNR)" based on previous studies) for injecting OECs and that the injected OECs would produce Schwann cell-like myelin sheaths around demyelinated axons.

Results were measured by both the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM-66) and the Caregiver Questionnaire Scale.

"This trial, albeit small in sample size, indicates that OEC KPNNR transplantation may be effective for functional improvement in children and adolescents with CP," said Dr. Huang.

"Our results showed that transplanting OECs into CP patients could improve the neurological function of the patients and did not cause significant side effects. The procedure may be a plausible method to treat this as yet incurable disorder."

"In parallel with recently FDA-approved US clinical trials of cell therapy for adult stroke and cerebral palsy, this clinical study in China advances the use of stem cells for treating brain disorders, but a very careful assessment of this experimental treatment needs to be exercised in order to gauge its safety and efficacy," says Cell Transplantation associate editor Dr. Cesar V. Borlongan.

Reference:
Intracranial Transplant of Olfactory Ensheathing Cells in Children and Adolescents With Cerebral Palsy: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial
Chen, Lin; Huang, Hongyun; Xi, Haitao; Xie, Zihang; Liu, Ruiwen; Jiang, Zhao; Zhang, Feng; Liu, Yancheng; Chen, Di; Wang, Qingmiao; Wang, Hongmei; Ren, Yushui; Zhou, Changman
Cell Transplantation, Volume 19, Issue 2, pages 185-191, DOI: 10.3727/096368910X492652
.........


ZenMaster

---

For more on stem cells and cloning, go to CellNEWS at
http://cellnews-blog.blogspot.com/

---

Stem Cells Renew Cornea

Stem Cells Renew Cornea Friday, 03 October 2008 A group of researchers in Switzerland has published a study appearing in the Oct 1 advance online edition of the Journal Nature that shows how the cornea uses stem cells to repair itself. Using mouse models, they demonstrate that everyday wear and tear on the cornea is repaired from stem cells residing in the corneal epithelium, and that more serious repair jobs require the involvement of other stem cells that migrate from the limbus, a region between the cornea and the conjunctiva, the white part of the eye. The integrity of the cornea, the transparent outer layer of the eye, is critical for vision. Millions of people around the world suffer from partial or complete blindness when their corneas lose transparency. Treatment options involve corneal transplants and, more recently, stem cell therapy. The surface of the cornea is naturally in a state of constant renewal; its upper layer, or epithelium, is completely turned over once every 7-14 days. Because slow-cycling stem cells have been found in the mouse limbus, researchers have assumed that these stem cells are the ones responsible for corneal renewal. The research led by Professor Yann Barrandon, who holds a joint appointment at EPFL and the Lausanne University Hospitals (CHUV), challenges this prevailing opinion that the limbus is the only place where corneal stem cells reside. The researchers demonstrated that the epithelium of the cornea also contains stem cells, and that these cells have the capacity to generate two different epithelial tissues: corneal (covering the transparent part of the eye) and conjunctival (covering the white part of the eye). They demonstrated experimentally that these are the cells activated in everyday corneal renewal. The stem cells residing in the limbus have a different role; they are only activated when the cornea is seriously wounded. To explain this distribution of stem cells and the different roles played by stem cells in different zones of the eye, the researchers propose that the expanding epithelia of the cornea and the conjunctiva act like tectonic plates, squeezing the limbus between them into a kind of equilibrium zone. Due to the constant expansion, stem cells accumulate in this zone. In the event of a rupture in the equilibrium, such as a large corneal injury, these limbal stem cells migrate into the cornea and conjunctiva and differentiate into the appropriate cell type to make repairs. The limbus is already recognized as a source of cells for corneal stem cell therapy in humans, and this new research indicates that the cornea itself can also be explored as a potential source of these cells. And because cancer has been associated with the presence of adult stem cells, the model also helps explain why transitional zones like the limbus, where stem cells accumulate, are sites where cancer tends to occur more frequently. Reference: Oligopotent stem cells are distributed throughout the mammalian ocular surface François Majo, Ariane Rochat, Michael Nicolas, Georges Abou Jaoudé & Yann Barrandon Nature advance online publication 1 October 2008, doi:10.1038/nature07406 ......... 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

---

Keeping Nerve Axons on Target

A second career for a growth factor receptor Friday, 12 September 2008 Neurons constituting the optic nerve wire up to the brain in a highly dynamic way. Cell bodies in the developing retina sprout processes, called axons, which extend toward visual centres in the brain. They are lured by attractive cues and making U-turns when they take the wrong path. How they find targets so accurately is a central question of neuroscience today. Using the mouse visual system, a team of Salk Institute for Biological Studies investigators led by Dennis O'Leary, Ph.D., identified an unanticipated factor that helps keep retinal axons from going astray. They report in the Sept. 11 issue of Neuron that p75, a protein previously known to regulate whether neurons live or die, leads a double life as an axon guidance protein. "Historically, we thought that factors that mediate cell survival and those controlling axon guidance were part of two separate processes," says O'Leary, a professor in the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory. "But in this study we show a direct interaction between these two systems." Collaborating with Kuo-Fen Lee, Ph.D., professor in the Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology, the O'Leary team observed a defect in mice genetically engineered to lack p75. Through their synaptic connections, retinal axons develop a two-dimensional map of the retina in their targets in the brain. In the mice lacking p75, retinal axons stopped short of their final target and formed a map that was shifted forward to the superior colliculus, a major visual centre in the brain. Such a defect in p75-null mice was puzzling: researchers have studied p75 for decades and found it associated with activities as varied as neuronal growth, survival, and degeneration. Axonal migration was not among them. Todd McLaughlin, Ph.D., a senior research associate in the lab and co-first author, says that insight came in an eureka moment: "We realized that what we were observing in these mice was similar to what would happen if you deleted a gene called ephrin-A from the retina." Unlike p75, ephrin-A was a well-characterized sender and receiver of axon guidance signals, but it lacked appendages normally seen on proteins controlling axon migration. p75, however, displayed those elements, suggesting that the proteins could pair up — one receiving the migration signal and the other transmitting it. The research team then turned to biochemical analyses and with the added expertise of Tsung Song, a research associate in Dr. Lee's lab, obtained evidence that supported this hypothesis. The group found that ephrin-A and p75 complexes in axonal membranes and showed that when activated they could generate the signals required to guide axons and develop their map in the brain.

---

When immature neurons are placed on a microscopic running track, where flanking lanes are carpeted with repellent factors, their growing axons remain in their lanes (top). Neurons from mice lacking p75 are unreceptive to repulsive cues: when placed on the track, their axons meander all over the field, crossing lanes and running down repellent-covered stripes (bottom). Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Yoo-Shick Lim, Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

---

But the clincher was the "stripe assay," a classical screen for guidance molecules that repel growing axons. In it, an immature neuron is placed on a microscopic running track, just as it starts to develop an axon. When flanking lanes are carpeted with repellent factors, the sprouting axon bursts from the block but remains in its lane like a well-coached runner, avoiding neighbouring tracks. Constructing tracks made from the repulsive factor sensed by ephrin-A, the researchers confirmed that axons from normal retinal neurons stayed in their lanes when flanked by the repellent. But neurons from mice lacking p75 were unreceptive to repulsive cues: when placed on the track their axons meandered all over the field, crossing lanes and running down repellent-covered stripes. Why retinal neurons missed the target in the p75-minus mice became clear: they lacked the cellular machinery to respond to critical repellent signals encountered in the brain and stopped migrating prematurely. Among its myriad functions, p75's new role is a critical one. "Repulsion is probably the dominant force in axon guidance and a stronger influence than attraction," explains McLaughlin, noting that providing axons with a lot of options is not the way to build a brain. "Attraction is like finding the best seat in an empty movie theatre, but repulsion is like picking the lone empty seat in a full theatre." "We have shown that ephrin-A cannot transduce an intracellular signal by itself and instead requires the co-receptor p75," summarizes Yoo-Shick Lim, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the O'Leary lab and co-first author. "This interaction could operate in numerous events in neural development." O'Leary believes that identifying mechanisms underlying developmental events is fundamental to understanding the basis of any biological disorder. "These studies establish that two distinct molecular systems, neurotrophins and axon guidance, both critical for neural development directly collaborate to develop neural connectivity”. “Findings such as these lend critical insight into how one might repair damage to the nervous system due to genetic defects, tumours or wounds to the brain or spinal cord," he says. "We hope one day to be able to repair these defects and get cells to form functional connections again." About The Salk Institute: The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to fundamental discoveries in the life sciences, the improvement of human health and the training of future generations of researchers. Jonas Salk, MD, whose polio vaccine all but eradicated the crippling disease poliomyelitis in 1955, opened the Institute in 1965 with a gift of land from the City of San Diego and the financial support of the March of Dimes. Reference: p75NTR Mediates Ephrin-A Reverse Signaling Required for Axon Repulsion and Mapping Yoo-Shick Lim, Todd McLaughlin, Tsung-Chang Sung, Alicia Santiago, Kuo-Fen Lee, and Dennis D.M. O'Leary Neuron, Vol 59, 746-758, 11 September 2008 ......... 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

---

Stem Cell Forum in China Demonstrate Cutting Edge Research

Focuses on new findings for iPS cells Friday, 25 July 2008 Over 300 of China's top stem cell biologists and researchers from around the globe shared their latest results and held China's first ever symposium on advanced induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell research during the just concluded first annual 2008 China Stem Cell Technology Forum at the China Medical City complex in Taizhou, China. At the Forum, which was chaired by Dr. Sean Hu, Chairman of Beike Biotechnology Co., Ltd., some of the world's most respected researchers presented their latest laboratory findings and clinical trial results in using stem cells to treat common ailments like heart disease and nervous system diseases such as cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, and optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH). Biologists attending the Mandarin Chinese language Forum came from leading research centers in nearly all of China's major cities, and as far away as the United States, Canada, India, Australia, and Malaysia. A special symposium entitled Advanced iPS Cell Technology, convened as part of the Forum, brought together for the first time over a dozen scientists involved in cutting edge stem cell research at some of America and China's most respected science universities and research labs. A potential substitute for embryonic stem cells, genetically programmable iPS cells are widely believed to be at the very forefront of the field's most exciting research frontier as iPS cells theoretically could deliver the greatest therapeutic benefit. Since iPS cells can be produced from the building blocks in any individual's own body, they bring the potential that people may someday be able to heal a range of sicknesses from tissue cells they have banked themselves. At the symposium, renowned stem cell scientists like Dr. Hu Jifan of the Palo Alto VA Health Care System under the Stanford University Medical School, Dr. Xiang Peng of Sun Yat Sen University, Dr. Zhang Yaou of Tsing Hua University, Dr. Kong Hsiang-Fu of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dr. Zhou Xiangjun of Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Dr. Yong-Jian Geng of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Texas Heart Institute, discussed their own latest advancements since recent breakthroughs at the University of Wisconsin and Kyoto University in Japan. The scientists also discussed mutual cooperation and research oversight opportunities, creation of ethical research guidelines in China, and future iPS cell research directions. At the symposium, a special subgroup of China's leading cardiovascular scientists like Dr. Chen Haozhu of Fudan University, Dr. Wang Shiwen of the Chinese PLA General Hospital, and Dr. Zhang Fumin of Nanjing Medical University conferred on the use of stem cells in heart disease treatment, as well as new research methods and ethical responsibilities in that field. Dr. Yong-Jian Geng, M.D., Ph.D, Director of the Heart Failure and Stem Cell Research Lab at the Texas Heart Institute and Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, said: "Scientists and clinicians have been doing incredible research on stem cells, and generating many exciting results. I feel confident more breakthroughs will be coming soon. I was very pleased and honoured to be invited to participate in this discussion, and I am willing to help Chinese investigators establish guidelines that will, in my opinion, help develop a global standard for the stem cell therapies." Dr. Hu Jifan, senior research scientist at the Palo Alto VA Health Care System under the Stanford University Medical School said: "Leading scientists in China are constantly finding ways to create more effective iPS cells. Through this forum we agreed to help verify each other's work, share experiences, and ensure safe, high-standard research takes place so that we may someday create the conditions for effective clinical treatments and industrial scale production of iPS cells. While no one knows yet when these conditions might be met, this Forum certainly helped speed up the process by bringing together some of the world's best minds working towards these goals." Presentations at the 2008 China Stem Cell Technology Forum covered a wide range of new biological advancements as Chinese scientists hone in on the global goal of bringing practical stem cell treatments to market. Other topics covered included findings on the most potent combinations of stem cells, effective cell processing methods, the latest clinical trials targeting diseases like heart conditions, muscular dystrophy and optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH), and more yet to be published stem cell research. Beike Biotechnology Co., Ltd., hosted the event along with the China National Center for Biotechnology Development (CNCBD) under China's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), the Jiangsu Provincial Department for Science and Technology, and the Taizhou Government. The 2008 China Stem Cell Technology Forum was attended by MOST officials, the Vice Governor of Jiangsu Province Mr. Zhang Taolin, and Taizhou Mayor Mr. Yao Jianhua. Dr. Sean Hu, the Chairman of Beike Biotech said: "Chinese science, and indeed global stem cell research, achieved a great deal through this forum. Beike is proud to work with China to bring together so many globally known Mandarin speaking stem cell scientists to better communicate and share resources regarding what may very well become the future of healthcare." About the China Medical City (CMC): Jiangsu Province is considered the number one location for China's medical industry based on revenue generated over the past 5 years. The city of Taizhou in Jiangsu is not only the hometown of China's President Hu Jintao, but is considered the fastest growing medical industry location in Jiangsu, with over 35 % annual growth in that time. Established by the Chinese Government in 2005 and consisting of 20-25 square kilometres in the heart of Taizhou City, China Medical City (CMC) is fully supported by China's local and national governments. CMC is emerging as a strong leader in China's efforts to develop a streamlined pharmaceutical and medical materials industry that concentrates all medical services and support in one location. Businesses located in CMC carry out a range of manufacturing and support services including research and development, creation and processing of medical materials, distribution, comprehensive healthcare delivery solutions, and patent filing support. About Beike Biotechnology Company Limited: Beike is a biotechnology company that was founded in July 2005 with capital from Beijing University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Shenzhen City Hall when it commercialized stem cell technology that had been in research since 1999. The research and clinical work comes from collaborations with leading institutions in China including of Tsinghua University, Beijing University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, No. 3 Army Medical University, Zhongshan Medical University, Guiyang Medical College and Zhengzhou University. Over 250 patients every month are treated with Beike's stem cells in leading hospitals throughout China. Patient experiences from treatments can be found at Stem Cell China News. SOURCE: Adopted from material from Beike Biotechnology Company Limited. See also: Beike Biotech Opens Comprehensive Stem Cell Storage and Processing Facility in China Medical News Today - 20 June 2008 ......... 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

---

Stem Cell Tourism Seen as ‘Medical Hoax’ by Specialists

Stem Cell Treatment for Children with Eye Nerve Disease Called ‘Medical Hoax’ Sunday, 13 July 2008 Two paediatric eye surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis expressed alarm over what they label a “21st century snake oil” scam. Recent newspaper stories — including several from Missouri — have reported parents flying their children to main land China for umbilical cord stem cell (CSC) infusions. The cost of these treatments, paid for entirely out-of-pocket by the parents, can be $50,000 or more. CSCs are extracted from the umbilical cords of Chinese mothers and their newborns and injected into the fluid around the spinal cord of the American children. The parents are led to believe by Chinese doctors that these CSCs are an effective treatment for optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH), a disease causing partial blindness at birth. ONH is growth failure of one or both optic nerves during the first trimesters of pregnancy. The nerve is the “cable” connecting the eye to the brain and each nerve should have one million fibres; in ONH the number of fibres ranges from 200,000-800,000. ONH, which affects about 1 in 5,000 newborns, is not hereditary and the exact cause is unknown. Lawrence Tychsen, M.D., and Gregg Lueder, M.D., professors of ophthalmology and visual sciences at Washington University School of Medicine and paediatric ophthalmologists at St Louis Children’s Hospital, diagnose and treat dozens of children each year with ONH. They are concerned that the CSC reports will mislead many parents of children with ONH, who may bankrupt savings, go deeply into debt or organize fundraisers to pay for sham treatment. Although some parents claim improvement in their child’s vision after returning from China, Tychsen and Lueder caution that no objective visual gains after CSC treatment have been demonstrated in any child with ONH. They can measure visual improvements objectively in infants and toddlers using non-invasive nerve and brain imaging and electronic measures of visual brain activity. They add that one would expect “a powerful placebo effect after these purported treatments. The temptation to believe vision had improved, after the expenditure of so much time and money, would be difficult to resist.” Aside from grave ethical concerns, they say that the injections could be dangerous, introducing infection or toxic matter into the brain fluids. Tychsen, who is also a neurobiologist studying visual brain development in infant monkeys, listed a number of reasons to disbelieve reports of improvement. First, CSCs placed in human spinal fluid would not be transported into the fibres of the optic nerve. Second, CSCs have never been shown to transform into optic fibres, even in fish or rodent experiments. In a monkey or human, the task would be “several orders of magnitude more complex,” Tychsen said. Third, to improve vision, 100,000 or so fibres would need to grow, not just a few, and each of the fibres would need to connect precisely in the brain. “CSCs are used legitimately throughout the United States to treat blood diseases (such as leukaemia) when the donor and recipient are genetically matched,” Tychsen said. “But CSCs from an unrelated person are rejected and destroyed. Even if an unmatched CSC survived, found its way inside the optic nerve and transformed itself into a new fibre, the fibre would need to find the correct connection among more than 500,000 connections in the visual brain. “ “Such a series of events would be so improbable as to qualify as miraculous, the equivalent of a chimpanzee typing the five acts of King Lear at one sitting,” Tychsen said. He said he believes that experiments by neuroscientists devoted to the discovery of nerve growth molecules may hold the best hope for future cures. Lueder pointed out that parents of ONH children should not despair. “Many babies born with ONH will have some improvement as they mature, because they learn to exploit more effectively the optic fibres that remain,” he said. Children with ONH can also achieve some improvements with surgery for eye crossing and nystagmus (roving movements of the eyes). He added that many ONH children function reasonably well in school using enlarged print, magnifiers and other aids for the visually impaired. About Washington University School of Medicine: Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked third in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare. See also: Stem-Cell Tourism Troubles Experts The Philadelphia Inquirer - Sunday, 13 July 2008 ......... 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

---

Adult Stem Cells Reprogrammed in The Brain

Adult Stem Cells Reprogrammed in Their Natural Environment Monday, 30 June 2008 In recent years, stem cell researchers have become very adept at manipulating the fate of adult stem cells cultured in the lab. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies achieved the same feat with adult neural stem cells still in place in the brain. They successfully coaxed mouse brain stem cells bound to join the neuronal network to differentiate into support cells instead. The discovery, which is published ahead of print on Nature Neuroscience's website, not only attests to the versatility of neural stem cells but also opens up new directions for the treatment of neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, stroke and epilepsy that not only affect neuronal cells but also disrupt the functioning of glial support cells. "We have known that the birth and death of adult stem cells in the brain could be influenced be experience, but we were surprised that a single gene could change the fate of stem cells in the brain," says the study's lead author, Fred H. Gage, Ph.D., a professor in the Laboratory for Genetics and the Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Diseases. Throughout life, adult neural stem cells generate new brain cells in two small areas of mammalian brains: the olfactory bulb, which processes odours, and the dentate gyrus, the central part of the hippocampus, which is involved in the formation of memories and learning. After these stem cells divide, their progenitors have to choose between several options – remaining a stem cell, turning into a nerve cell, also called a neuron, or becoming part of the brain's support network, which includes astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Astrocytes are star-shaped glia cells that hold neurons in place, nourish them, and digest parts of dead neurons. Oligodendrocytes are specialized cells that wrap tightly around axons, the long, hair-like extensions of nerve cell that carry messages from one neuron to the next. They form a fatty insulation layer, known as myelin, whose job it is to speed up electrical signals travelling along axons. When pampered and sheltered in a petri dish, adult neural stem cells can be nudged to differentiate into any kind of brain cell but within their natural environment in the brain career options of neural stem cells are thought to be mostly limited to neurons. "When we grow stem cells in the lab, we add lots of growth factors resulting in artificial conditions, which might not tell us a lot about the in vivo situation," explains first author Sebastian Jessberger, M.D., formerly a post-doctoral researcher in Gage's lab and now an assistant professor at the Institute of Cell Biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. "As a result we don't know much about the actual plasticity of neural stem cells within their adult brain niche."

---

TOP: Throughout life, adult neural stem cells generate new brain cells in the dentate gyrus, the central part of the hippocampus, which is involved in the formation of memories and learning (shown in white). BOTTOM: Over expression of a single gene changed the fate of neural stem cells bound to join the neuronal network in the brain. Instead they differentiated into glial support cells (shown in green). Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Sebastian Jessberger, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich

---

To test whether stem cells in their adult brain environment can still veer off the beaten path and change their fate, Jessberger used retroviruses to genetically manipulate neural stem cells and their progeny in the dentate gyrus of laboratory mice. Under normal conditions, the majority of newborn cells differentiated into neurons. When he introduced the Ascl1, a transcription factor which had previously been shown to be involved in the generation of oligodendrocytes and inhibitory neurons, he successfully redirected the fate of newborn cells from a neuronal to an oligodendrocytic lineage. "It was quite surprising that stem cells in the adult brain maintain their fate plasticity and that a single gene was enough to reprogram these cells," says Jessberger. "We can now potentially tailor the fate of stem cells to treat certain conditions such as multiple sclerosis." In patients with multiple sclerosis, the immune system attacks oligodendrocytes, which leads to the thinning of the myelin layer affecting the neurons' ability to efficiently conduct electrical signals. Being able to direct neural stem cells to differentiate into oligodendrocytes may alleviate the symptoms. About Salk Institute for Biological Studies: The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to fundamental discoveries in the life sciences, the improvement of human health and the training of future generations of researchers. Jonas Salk, M.D., whose polio vaccine all but eradicated the crippling disease poliomyelitis in 1955, opened the Institute in 1965 with a gift of land from the City of San Diego and the financial support of the March of Dimes. Reference: Directed differentiation of hippocampal stem/progenitor cells in the adult brain Sebastian Jessberger, Nicolas Toni, Gregory D Clemenson Jr, Jasodhara Ray & Fred H Gage Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 29 June 2008, doi:10.1038/nn.2148 ......... 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

---

Parkinson's Cure Is In Your Nose

Olfactory adult stem cells offer new hope for Parkinson's cure Friday, 06 June 2008 Research released today provides evidence that a cure for Parkinson's disease could lie just inside the nose of patients themselves. The Griffith University, Australia, study published today in the journal Stem Cells found that adult stem cells harvested from the noses of Parkinson's patients gave rise to dopamine-producing brain cells when transplanted into the brain of a rat. The debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's such as loss of muscle control are caused by degeneration of cells that produce the essential chemical dopamine in the brain. Current drug therapies replace dopamine in the brain, but these often become less effective after prolonged use. The discovery is the work of the National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research, part of Griffith's Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies. Project leader Professor Alan Mackay-Sim said researchers simulated Parkinson's symptoms in rats by creating lesions on one side of the brain similar to the damage Parkinson's causes in the human brain. "The lesions to one side of the brain made the rats run in circles," he said. "When stem cells from the nose of Parkinson's patients were cultured and injected into the damaged area the rats re-acquired the ability to run in a straight line. All animals transplanted with the human cells had a dramatic reduction in the rate of rotation within just 3 weeks," he said. "This provided evidence the cells had differentiated to give rise to dopamine-producing neurons influenced by being in the environment of the brain. In-vitro tests also revealed the presence of dopamine. Significantly, none of the transplants led to formation of tumours or teratomas in the host rats as has occurred after embryonic stem cell transplantation in a similar model.” He said like all stem cells, stem cells from the olfactory nerve in the nose are 'naïve' having not yet differentiated into which sort of cells they will give rise to. "They can still be influenced by the environment they are put into. In this case we transplanted them into the brain, where they were directed to give rise to dopamine producing brain cells." The advantage of using a patient's own cells is that, unlike stem cells from a foreign embryo, they are not rejected by the patient's immune system, so patients are free from a lifetime of potentially dangerous immuno-suppressant drug therapy. This development follows Professor Mackay-Sim's 2006 development of a world-first technique that demonstrated that olfactory adult stem cells can give rise to heart, nerve, liver and brain cells. Reference: Olfactory Mucosa is a Potential Source for Autologous Stem Cell Therapy for Parkinson's Disease Wayne Murrell, Andrew Wetzig, Michael Donnellan, Francois Feron, Tom Burne, Adrian Meedeniya, James Kesby, John Bianco, Chris Perry, Peter Silburn, Alan Mackay-Sim Stem Cells Express, published online June 5, 2008; doi:10.1634/stemcells.2008-0074 ......... 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

---