Nerve Cells Damage Could be Reversed Using Peptide
News Release, Wolrd Mitochondria Society, Berlin - Germany – February 22, 2022
Jun Li et. al research at the University of Illinois Chicago presented promising results for a treatment to stop nerve cell degeneration that happens in some types of disorders, such as hereditary spastic paraplegia and Parkinson's disease, which can cause significant disability.
The reseach team was able to use human cells that they transformed into stem cells and then modified to become nerve cells with the genetic disorder for a particular type of hereditary spastic paraplegia.The study looked at how the long axons that carry messages between nerve cells in the brain can break down, which causes increasingly worse tightening of the leg muscles, leading to imbalance and eventually paralysis, in addition to other symptoms.
Jun Li says: "What we found was that the mitochondria in these cells were breaking apart, what we call mitochondrial fission, and that caused the axons to be shorter and less effective at carrying messages to the brain". Also, "We then looked at whether a particular agent would change the way the nerve cells function - and it did. It inhibited the mitochondrial fission and let the nerve cells grow normally and also stopped further damage."
In conclusion, this agent (a particular chain of amino acids called a peptide) could prove to be useful for a drug or other therapy to stop the nerve cells from becoming damaged or reverse the course of the damage. Moreover, using gene therapy could prevent mitochondrial damage, providing another strategy to reverse the nerve damage.
Similar interesting researches will be discussed in detail in the 13th World Annual Meeting of WMS on Targeting Mitochondria which will be held on October 2022 in Berlin.
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Targeting Mitochondria 2022 Congress
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