With the help of gene therapy, German researchers have succeeded for the first time in recovering paralyzed mice after a complete transverse injury. Scientists from Ruhr Bochum University unveiled the new therapeutic approach led by his Department of Cell Psychology under the direction of Professor Dr. Dietmar Fischer to find the cure to unstable spinal cord damage. The key element for this is the hyper-interleukin-6 protein which promotes the regeneration of nerve cells and how it is given to the animals. The researchers then reported the findings to the journal Nature Communications on Jan. 15.
Explaining the protein hyper-interleukin-6, or hIL-6 for short, Dietmar Fischer said, “This is a design cytokine, which means it does not occur in nature and must be produced using genetic engineering ”. His working group was able to show in previous research that hIL-6 can “stimulate nerve cell regeneration in the visual system”. In the most recent work, the Bochum team stimulated zero cells in the motor-sensory cortex to produce hyper-interleukin-6 themselves.
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How did the researchers do it?
To achieve the goal of regenerating nerve cells, the researchers used viruses suitable for gene therapy that were easily absorbed into an accessible area of the brain. Since the viruses took the plan to introduce the protein into specific zero cells or motor-neurons. These cells are also connected through the axonal side branches to other zero cells in other areas, “the hyper-interleukin-6 was transported directly to those cells that were difficult to access but were important and release there in a targeted way “.
“The gene therapy treatment stimulated only a few zero cells, axonal regeneration of different nerve cells in the brain and several motor pathways in the spinal cord at the same time,” explains Dietmar Fischer. “Ultimately, this allowed the previously paralyzed animals to be treated in this way to start walking after two or three weeks. This surprised us at first, as it never succeeded after complete paraplegia. ”
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