Neurodegenerative disease: Giving survival a boost

sea-maid submitted, created time 3 days 43 minutes (www.nature.com)

Although it is the selective death of motor neurons that ultimately causes the symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the disease also renders other spinal cord cells, including astrocytes, dysfunctional. Maragakis and colleagues have now shown that the replacement of damaged astrocytes through precursor cell transplantation might be a useful therapeutic strategy for ALS.

The authors transplanted glial restricted precursors (GRPs) into the grey matter of the spinal cord in a transgenic rat model of ALS

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Gene silencing made practical: siRNA used to treat neurogenerative disorders in the lab

Darkfrog submitted, created time 5 months 2 weeks (www.jbc.org)

This abstract is about as easy to read as sixteenth-century tax law, but here's the gist: Human neurogenerative disorders, like Huntington's, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gherig's disease) are all caused or exacerbated by the expression of mutant genes. If we switch off the genes--or at least keep them from producing proteins--then the patients might get better. One way to switch off a gene is to inject the cell with a siRNA (short interfering RNA) that complements the gene's product mRNA. This is called gene silencing

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New Gene Nailed for ALS

Eric wu submitted, created time 8 months 3 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Even with the entire human genome in hand, scientists can still have trouble rooting out the genes behind a disease. Consider amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. One ALS-related gene mutation was found in 1993, but it affects only 1% of all ALS patients. Now, after a long dry spell, researchers have finally hit on a second. It's just as rare as the first, but it seems to be more closely related to aspects of ALS pathology found in all patients.

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Mutation in one gene tied to Lou Gehrig's disease

Eric wu submitted, created time 11 months 5 days (www.reuters.com)

A mutation in a single gene may raise one's risk of getting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, by as much as 30 percent, offering a potential new target for drug research, Dutch scientists said on Sunday.

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