Researchers at the University of Buffalo have identified a new mechanism that plays a central role in adult brain stem cell development and prompts brain stem cells to differentiate into neurons. Integrative FGFR1 Signaling (INFS) has fundamentally challenged the prevailing ideas of how signals are processed in cells during neuronal development and is considered capable of repopulating degenerated brain areas. This raises the possibility for new treatments for diseases which cause an extensive loss of neurons or diminish the production of neurons, such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, autism, schizophrenia, strokes and other neurodegenerative disorders.
Neurogenesis is the process of differentiation of neuronal stem cells (NS) into mature neurons, and holds the key to the treatment of various neurodegenerative disorders. The team of Michal Stachowiak, Ph.D., director of the Molecular and Structural Neurobiology and Gene Therapy Program at UB, investigated the use of organically modified silica nanoparticles as gene delivery vehicles into the stem cells of the brain in vivo. This was done to efficiently transfect (introduce foreign material into eukaryotic cells) recombinant nuclear forms of FGFR1 and its FGF-2 ligand into the brain subventricular zone, and it was found that INFS stimulates the neuronal stem cells to withdraw from the cell cycle, differentiate into neurons that migrate to the olfactory bulb, subcortical brain regions and in the brain cortex. Thus, nanoparticle-mediated non-viral gene transfer may be used to induce selective differentiation of neuronal stem cells, providing a potentially significant impact on the treatment of a broad range of neurological disorders.
Of course, there is a need for further development of gene delivery methods for the treatment of neuronal loss, which Stachowiak and colleagues are currently working tirelessly on. While targeting the INFS mechanisms by small molecules could potentially replace the need for gene transfers, a means to control it must still be determined.
Full article at http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/IB/article.asp?doi=B902617G
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