Angelo Vescovi of the Stem Cell Research Institute at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, Italy found that cultured adult stem cells injected intravenously moved unimpeded to affected areas of the animals' brains.
Injections of cultured adult brain stem cells seem to have helped mice with a form of multiple sclerosis to recover from paralysis. Researchers hope that similar therapies may one day treat human sufferers of the disease.
Cells injected into the bloodstream found their way to the animals' brains, where they repaired damaged and inflamed areas. Four out of 15 mice with paralysed back legs moved normally after treatment1.
"It's a great recovery," says team member Angelo Vescovi of the Stem Cell Research Institute at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, Italy. The other 11 mice retained only minor tail paralysis.
Multiple sclerosis affects more than a million people worldwide and is currently incurable. Symptoms include fatigue, tremors and paralysis. It is thought to arise when the immune system attacks the nervous system, stripping brain cells of their fatty myelin coatings and damaging the underlying nerve fibres, called axons.
The transplanted cells carry specialized proteins on their surface that help them to enter the brain. Once inside, they can turn into any type of adult brain cell, explains neuro-immunologist Gianvito Martino, also of San Raffaele Hospital. Over 40% of them turn into cells that make myelin. "These wrap around the naked axons that are still there," Martino says, helping the nerve cells to conduct electricity once again.
Paralysed mice became increasingly active just ten days after receiving the intravenous injection of one million cultured brain stem cells.
posted by Canadian Myelin Research Initiative at 3:18 PM
