Damage to fully developed nerve cells has irreversible consequences, because nerve fibers lose their ability to regenerate when they mature. New experiments show that the activation of a protein called protordin is part of the nerve cell regeneration mechanism (transformed into prominent elements?) and can stimulate eye nerves to re-grow after injury. Glaucoma is a disease in which the optic nerve (the connection between the eye and the brain) is damaged and vision is impaired.
"We have achieved the strongest nerve regeneration among all existing technologies." Keith Martin, an ophthalmologist at the University of Melbourne, Australia, said: "So far, it is almost impossible to regenerate the optic nerve. But this study shows that, "
In 2016, scientists turned on a dormant growth switch, and adult mice have only a small part of retinal ganglion cells. These new nerve cells reconnect the eyes to the brain, allowing them to grow again.
Prior to this, a 2012 study partially restored the "simple" vision of adult blind mice.
This latest research is still in its infancy and aims to understand exactly how protorzine, a scaffold molecule mainly present in budding neurons, supports cell proliferation.
Scientists stimulate nerve cells to produce more protorzine to see if it helps protect cells from damage and repair them after damage. Researchers have shown that increasing the level of proline can stimulate the regeneration of laser-cut nerve cells. Those sparse axons grow longer than untreated cells and may take less time. Next, gene therapy is performed on adult mice and injected directly into the eyes, which contains instructions for producing neuron protordin. Although it sounds painful, it can actually be done safely for humans (especially injection procedures, not to mention gene therapy itself is safe). After
, it was a nerve that deliberately damaged the mouse. A few weeks later, more nerve cells survived in the retina of the experimental group than in the control group. In the final experiment, the scientists removed the entire retina of the mice in the aforementioned experimental group to see if this treatment could prevent nerve cell death in the first place.
The researchers discovered three days later that the stimulus that produced protordin was almost "complete neuroprotection, and these retinas did not show the loss of retinal neurons." Usually, it takes several days for about half of the retinal neurons to be removed by this method. Veselina Petrova, a neuroscience student at the University of Cambridge, said: "Our strategy relies on the use of gene therapy (a method that has been used clinically) to deliver protorzine to the eye." .. as a way to protect retinal neurons from death and stimulation A means to re-grow its axis. "
It should be pointed out that animal experiments in a laboratory environment are still far from being clinically applied on humans.
One of the next steps is to study the protective effects of human retinal cells and protorzine. The scientists who published the study will also investigate whether the same technology can be used to repair damaged neurons after spinal cord injury.
"This method of determining treatment is usually promising for damaged retinas," Petrois said. "Protorzine, which can be increased or activated, can be used to promote the regeneration of injured spinal cord."