Posts tagged familial dysautonomia
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Biologists Reprogram Skin Cells to Mimic Rare Disease
Johns Hopkins stem cell biologists have found a way to reprogram a patient’s skin cells into cells that mimic and display many biological features of a rare genetic disorder called familial dysautonomia. The process requires growing the skin cells in a bath of proteins and chemical additives while turning on a gene to produce neural crest cells, which give rise to several adult cell types. The researchers say their work substantially expedites the creation of neural crest cells from any patient with a neural crest-related disorder, a tool that lets physicians and scientists study each patient’s disorder at the cellular level.
Previously, the same research team produced customized neural crest cells by first reprogramming patient skin cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are similar to embryonic stem cells in their ability to become any of a broad array of cell types.
“Now we can circumvent the iPS cells step, saving seven to nine months of time and labor and producing neural crest cells that are more similar to the familial dysautonomia patients’ cells,” says Gabsang Lee, Ph.D., an assistant professor of neurology at the Institute for Cell Engineering and the study’s senior author. A summary of the study was published online in the journal Cell Stem Cell on Aug. 21.
Neural crest cells appear early in human and other animal prenatal development, and they give rise to many important structures, including most of the nervous system (apart from the brain and spinal cord), the bones of the skull and jaws, and pigment-producing skin cells. Dysfunctional neural crest cells cause familial dysautonomia, which is incurable and can affect nerves’ ability to regulate emotions, blood pressure and bowel movements. Less than 500 patients worldwide suffer from familial dysautonomia, but dysfunctional neural crest cells can cause other disorders, such as facial malformations and an inability to feel pain.
The challenge for scientists has been the fact that by the time a person is born, very few neural crest cells remain, making it hard to study how they cause the various disorders.
To make patient-specific neural crest cells, the team began with laboratory-grown skin cells that had been genetically modified to respond to the presence of the chemical doxycycline by glowing green and turning on the gene Sox10, which guides cells toward maturation as a neural crest cell.
Testing various combinations of molecular signals and watching for telltale green cells, the team found a regimen that turned 2 percent of the cells green. That combination involved turning on Sox10 while growing the cells on a layer of two different proteins and giving them three chemical additives to “rewind” their genetic memory and stimulate a protein network important for development.
Analyzing the green cells at the single cell level, the researchers found that they showed gene activity similar to that of other neural crest cells. Moreover, they discovered that 40 percent were “quad-potent,” or able to become the four cell types typically derived from neural crest cells, while 35 percent were “tri-potent” and could become three of the four. The cells also migrated to the appropriate locations in chick embryos when implanted early in development.
The team then applied a modified version of the technique to skin cells from healthy adults and found that the skin cells became neural crests at a rate similar to the team’s previous experiments.
Finally, the investigators used their regimen on skin cells from patients with familial dysautonomia, then compared these familial dysautonomia-neural crest cells to the control neural crest cells made from healthy adults. They identified 412 genes with lower activity levels in the familial dysautonomia-neural crest cells, of which 98 are involved in processing RNA products made from active genes.
According to the authors, this new observation offers insight into what goes wrong in familial dysautonomia.
“It seems as though the neural crest cells created directly from patient skin cells show more of the characteristics of familial dysautonomia than the neural crest cells we created previously from induced pluripotent stem cells,” says Lee. “That means they should be better predictors of what happens in a particular familial dysautonomia patient, and whether or not a potential treatment will work for any given individual.”
The method they devised should also be applicable to skin cells taken from people with any of the other diseases that result from dysfunctional neural crest cells, such as congenital pain disorders and Charcot-Marie-Tooth diseases, Lee says.
Common Food Supplement Fights Degenerative Brain Disorders
Nutritional supplement delays advancement of Parkinson’s and Familial Dysautonomia, TAU researchers discover
Widely available in pharmacies and health stores, phosphatidylserine is a natural food supplement produced from beef, oysters, and soy. Proven to improve cognition and slow memory loss, it’s a popular treatment for older people experiencing memory impairment. Now a team headed by Prof. Gil Ast and Dr. Ron Bochner of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Human Molecular Genetics has discovered that the same supplement improves the functioning of genes involved in degenerative brain disorders, including Parkinson’s disease and Familial Dysautonomia (FD).
In FD, a rare genetic disorder that impacts the nervous system and appears almost exclusively in the Ashkenazi Jewish population, a genetic mutation prevents the brain from manufacturing healthy IKAP proteins — which likely have a hand in cell migration and aiding connections between nerves — leading to the early degeneration of neurons. When the supplement was applied to cells taken from FD patients, the gene function improved and an elevation in the level of IKAP protein was observed, reports Prof. Ast. These results were replicated in a second experiment which involved administering the supplement orally to mouse populations with FD.
The findings, which have been published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics, are very encouraging, says Prof. Ast. “That we see such an effect on the brain — the most important organ in relation to this disease — shows that the supplement can pass through the blood-brain barrier even when administered orally, and accumulate in sufficient amounts in the brain.”
Slowing the death of nerve cells
Already approved for use as a supplement by the FDA, phosphatidylserine contains a molecule essential for transmitting signals between nerve cells in the brain. Prof. Ast and his fellow researchers decided to test whether the same chemical, which is naturally synthesized in the body and known to boost memory capability, could impact the genetic mutation which leads to FD.
Researchers applied a supplement derived from oysters, provided by the Israeli company Enzymotec, to cells collected from FD patients. Noticing a robust effect on the gene, including a jump in the production of healthy IKAP proteins, they then tested the same supplement on mouse models of FD, engineered with the same genetic mutation that causes the disease in humans.
The mice received the supplement orally, every two days for a period of three months. Researchers then conducted extensive genetic testing to assess the results of the treatment. “We found a significant increase of the protein in all the tissues of the body,” reports Prof. Ast, including an eight-fold increase in the liver and 1.5-fold increase in the brain. “While the food supplement does not manufacture new nerve cells, it probably delays the death of existing ones,” he adds.
Therapeutic potential for Parkinson’s
That the supplement is able to improve conditions in the brain, even when given orally, is a significant finding, notes Prof. Ast. Most medications enter the body through the blood stream, but are incapable of breaking through the barrier between the blood and the brain.
In addition, the researchers say the supplement’s positive effects extend beyond the production of IKAP. Not only did phosphatidylserine impact the gene associated with FD, but it also altered the level of a total of 2400 other genes — hundreds of which have been connected to Parkinson’s disease in previous studies.
The researchers believe that the supplement may have a beneficial impact on a number of degenerative diseases of the brain, concludes Prof. Ast, including a major potential for the development of new medications which would help tens of millions of people worldwide suffering from these devastating diseases.
(Source: aftau.org)