Hi All.

I have no idea if any of you knowledgable people have read this information yet but I thought why not give it a shot and post here.

comments are welcome. Does sound promising, no???

Melody

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Researchers Find Protein Determines Nerve’s Fate

Researchers at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, New York University (NYU) School of Medicine, have found that a protein (neuregulin-1 type III, or NRG1-III) essential for the protective wrapping around a nerve’s central wiring, or axons, also determines its fate.

Just as plastic coatings insulate electrical wires, myelin coats nerve fibers. This fatty substance also accelerates message-carrying impulses that travel along the nerve fibers and frees them from interference. For more than a decade, scientists have known that nerve cells make neuregulins, growth proteins that promote glial cell growth. However, the delicate interaction between nerve cells and the glial cells (Schwann cells) that produce them remain a mystery.



Note: The Neuropathy Association has supported with research grants the work of Dr. Zarife Sahenk, Director of Neuromuscular Diseases at Ohio State University, on the nerve regeneration effects of the growth factor protein NT-3 (neurotrophin-3).


It has been shown that growth factor protein NRG1-III triggers glial cells to make myelin. This knowledge should lead researchers to develop more effective treatments for several neurological diseases, including peripheral neuropathy.

To determine that NRG1-III is necessary for myelin production, the NYU research team grew two cell types together in lab dishes. The mix of unmyelinated nerve cells from embryonic mice, cells that don’t produce NRG1-III, and glial cells from adult rats showed no myelination. However, when the nerve cells were altered genetically to produce and release NRG1-III, the glial cells quickly coated them with protective myelin.

The NYU research team reported in the September 2005 issue of Neuron magazine that the amount of NRG1-III produced by a newly developed nerve cell is directly related to the thickness of the protective myelin sheath provided by glial cells. The team found that the sensory neurons in mice deficient in NRG1-III are poorly sheathed and fail to myelinate. That strongly suggests that nerve cells are significant in determining their own fate.

The team also discovered that lentiviral-mediated expression of NRG1-III rescues these defects and myelinates the axons of sympathetic neurons. Nerve fibers extending from these neurons are also disproportionately unmyelinated, aberrantly sheathed, and hypomyelinated, with reduced conduction velocities.

Members of the NYU team are C. Taveggia, G. Zanazzi, A. Petrylak, H. Yano, J. Rosenbluth. S. Einheber, X. Xu, R. M. Esper, J. A. Loeb, P. Shrager, M. V. Chao, D. L. Falls, L. Role L and J. L. Salzer.