The spinal cord injuries caused by sports or traffic accidents often lead to disability, such as paralysis. It causes damage to the long cylindrical processes of nerve cells, so-called axons. They carry information from the brain to the muscles and back - from the skin and muscles. If the processes were damaged due to injury or illness, this connection is interrupted.
Axans cannot grow up - it means that patients will suffer from paralymp all life. Until now, there are no treatment options that could restore lost functions in victims.
In search of potential treatment, a team from the University of Ruhr was examined by the hyper-interleukin-6 protein (HIL-6). "This is the so-called designer cytokine. He does not occur in nature, it is produced using genetic engineering, "the scientist Ditmar Fisher explained. Details of the work were published in the journal Nature Communications.
Previously, the study group demonstrated that HIL-6 can effectively stimulate the regeneration of nerve cells in the visual system. Now scientists forced the nervous cells of the motor and sensory cortex to independently produce the "designer" protein of hyper-interleukin-6.
For this, they used viruses suitable for gene therapy. They were injected into the brain, and they delivered a protein production scheme to certain nerve cells - motor mechanons. These cells are also associated with axonal side branches with neurons in other areas of the brain, which are important for the process of movement, such as walking. The hyper-interleukin-6 was also transported to these nervous cells - as a rule, it is difficult to accessible - and released there.
Thus, the gene therapy of several nerve cells stimulated the axonial regeneration of various brain neurons and several motor tracts in the spinal cord at the same time. As a result, it allowed previously paralyzed mice on which test therapy was tested, start walking in two or three weeks. "It became a big surprise for us, since before we did not see examples of restoring motor functions after full paralysis," Fisher told.
Now the research team is checking whether it is possible to combine this approach with others to optimize the process of administering hyper-interleukin-6 to the organism of mammals and improve the effect. They also explore whether the "designer" protein is working hyper-interleukin-6 on mice with old injuries. "This is especially important for people," Fisher emphasized. - Future experiments will show if it is possible to transfer the approach to a person developed by us. "
Source: Naked Science