Can A Dead Nerve Be Repaired
Fight for Sight funded researchers have successfully demonstrated a new method of repairing damage to the optic nerve in the lab for the first time, in new research that hopes to restore vision to those who've lost it as a issue of glaucoma and other conditions.
Epitome shows Professor Keith Martin in scrubs
The report, which was published in Nature Communications this month, saw researchers funded past heart research charity Fight for Sight based at University of Cambridge interact with colleagues in Australia. The team were investigating if the gene responsible for the product of a protein known as protrudin, a so-called 'scaffolding molecule', could assist prevent or even repair damage to retinal cells caused by glaucoma.
Researchers, led by Professor Keith Martin, Dr Richard Eva, Dr Veselina Petrova and Professor James Fawcett, used a prison cell civilisation system to grow encephalon cells in a dish. They then used a light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation to injure the cells' nerve fibers (axons) and analysed the response to this injury using a fourth dimension lapse microscope and found that increasing the amount of protrudin in these nerve cells vastly increased their ability to repair themselves. The protrudin was delivered to the cells using a gene therapy technique.
Glaucoma is the name for a group of center weather condition that cause sight loss because of impairment to the optic nerve – the nervus that connects the optics to the brain. Prior to this study, there was no handling that allowed for damage to the optic nervus to exist reversed. Around 500,000 people are living with glaucoma in the UK and it's the second leading cause of incomprehension in the world.
Despite all currently bachelor treatments, around 10-15% of patients with glaucoma go blind in at to the lowest degree one eye during their lifetime. Not simply could this research be effective in halting or reversing the damage caused past glaucoma, it could besides be hugely important in improving success rates of center transplants – helping a transplanted eye to connect to the brain by growing axons through the optic nervus."
Professor Keith Martin
The findings of this research are incredibly promising – not just for people with glaucoma-related sight loss, but also more than broadly in the case of sight loss every bit a result of damage to the optic nerve. Professor Martin and his team's piece of work represents a significant breakthrough for eye research and the potential of regenerative medicine to find new treatments for preventing as well every bit reversing sight loss."
Dr Neha Issar-Dark-brown, Director of Research, Fight for Sight
It'southward hoped that this promising enquiry volition be followed by clinical trials in the side by side few years. If successful, the researchers hope this arroyo could become part of a new treatment strategy to repair the optic nerve in severe glaucoma over the next decade.
Source:
Periodical reference:
Petrova, V., et al. (2020) Protrudin functions from the endoplasmic reticulum to support axon regeneration in the developed CNS. Nature Communications. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19436-y.
Posted in: Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
Source: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201120/New-method-of-repairing-damage-to-optic-nerve-offers-hope-for-people-with-glaucoma-related-sight-loss.aspx
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