While MAG inhibition has been known for some time, Schnaars lab is the first to identify gangliosides as the nerve cell targets for this inhibition. In the current study, the researchers focused on ways to unlock this inhibition in order to restore nerve growth.
They identified four chemicals including antibodies and enzymes known to interfere with myelin-axon interactions that induced nerve regeneration in rat brain cells under controlled laboratory conditions, according to Schnaar. He is now testing the nerve-regenerating factors in animal models with damaged nerves to determine if these therapies can work in living systems. Preliminary results are not yet available, he says.
In the [human] body, nerve damage is much more complicated than our laboratory conditions, and this new knowledge, by itself, is unlikely to solve the problem of nerve regeneration, cautions Schnaar. However, it is our hope that our discoveries, along with other new discoveries on the molecular basis for nerve regeneration, will help in the search for therapies to improve functional recovery after nervous system injury or disease.
About 11,000 new cases of spinal cord injury occur in this country each year. While there is no cure for paralysis, there are a number of treatment options for nervous system disease and injury, including drugs, cell transplants, artificial nerves and rehabilitation therapy.
The National Institutes of Health, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Stollof Family Fund provided funding for this study.
Mark T. Sampson
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8-Apr-2002