Neuron

Watch Spinal Cord Cells Take a Hike!

/ Karen Ring / 2 Comments

magic school busWhat exactly goes on inside the human body? If you asked this question to the children’s book character Ms. Frizzle, she would throw you into her Magic School Bus and take you on a wild ride “Inside the Human Body” to get you up close and personal with the different organs and structures within our bodies.

Ms. Frizzle had a wild imagination, but she was on to something with her crazy adventures. Recently, scientists took a page out of one of Ms. Frizzle children’s books and took their own wild ride to check out what’s going on with the human spinal cord.

In a paper published yesterday in Neuron, scientists from the Salk Institute in San Diego reported that they were able to watch spinal cord cells walk around the spine of mice in real-time. They used a special microscope that could track and record the movement of motor neurons, an important nerve cell that controls the movement of muscles in your body. What they found when they watched these cells was equivalent to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Check out their stunning movie here:

The scientists not only recorded the activity of these motor neurons, but they identified the other spinal cord cells that these neurons interact and make connections with. One of their most significant findings was a population of spinal cord cells that connected to a subtype of motor neurons to foster important muscle movements like walking.

Understanding how the different cells of the spinal cord work together is very important because it will allow scientists and doctors to figure out better ways to treat patients with spinal cord injuries or neurodegenerative diseases, like ALS, that affect motor neurons.

Senior author Samuel Pfaff commented in a press release on the importance of this study and how easy his team’s technology is to use:

Pfaff_S09

Samuel Pfaff

Using optical methods to be able to watch neuron activity has been a dream over the past decade. Now, it’s one of those rare times when the technology is actually coming together to show you things you hadn’t been able to see before. You don’t need to do any kind of post-image processing to interpret this. These are just raw signals you can see through the eyepiece of a microscope. It’s really a jaw-dropping kind of visualization for a neuroscientist.

While this study doesn’t provide a direct avenue for therapeutic development, it does pave the way for a better understanding of the normal, healthy processes that go on in the human spine. Having more knowledge of “what is right” will help scientists to develop better strategies to fix “what is wrong” in spinal cord injuries and diseases like ALS.

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Throwback Thursday: Progress to a Cure for ALS

/ Karen Ring / Leave a comment

Welcome to our new “Throwback Thursday” (TBT) series. CIRM’s Stem Cellar blog has a rich archive of stem cell content that is too valuable to let dust bunnies take over.  So we decided to brush off some of our older, juicy stories and see what advancements in stem cell research science have been made since!

ALS is also called Lou Gehrig's disease, named after the famous American baseball player.

ALS is also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, named after the famous American baseball player.

This week, we’ll discuss an aggressive neurodegenerative disease called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS. You’re probably more familiar with its other name, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Gehrig was a famous American Major League baseball player who took the New York Yankees to six world championships. He had a gloriously successful career that was sadly cut short by ALS. Post diagnosis, Gehrig’s physical performance quickly deteriorated, and he had to retire from a sport for which he was considered an American hero. He passed away only a year later, at the young age of 37, after he succumbed to complications caused by ALS.

A year ago, we published an interesting blog on this topic. Let’s turn back the clock and take a look at what happened in ALS research in 2014.

TBT: Disease in a Dish – Using Human Stem Cells to Find ALS Treatments

This blog featured the first of our scintillating “Stem Cells in Your face” video series called “Treating ALS with a Disease in a Dish.” Here is an excerpt:

Our latest video Disease in a Dish: That’s a Mouthful takes a lighthearted approach to help clear up any head scratching over this phrase. Although it’s injected with humor, the video focuses on a dreadful disease: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, it’s a disorder in which nerve cells that control muscle movement die. There are no effective treatments and it’s always fatal, usually within 3 to 5 years after diagnosis.

To explain disease in a dish, the video summarizes a Science Translation Medicine publication of CIRM-funded research reported by the laboratory of Robert Baloh, M.D., Ph.D., director of Cedars-Sinai’s multidisciplinary ALS Program. In the study, skin cells from patients with an inherited form of ALS were used to create nerve cells in a petri dish that exhibit the same genetic defects found in the neurons of ALS patients. With this disease in a dish, the team identified a possible cause of the disease: the cells overproduce molecules causing a toxic buildup that affects neuron function. The researchers devised a way to block the toxic buildup, which may point to a new therapeutic strategy.

New Stem Cell Discoveries in ALS Make Progress to Finding a Cure

So what’s happened in the field of ALS research in the past year? I’m happy to report that a lot has been accomplished to better understand this disease and to develop potential cures! Here are a few highlights that we felt were worth mentioning:

  • The Ice Bucket Challenge launched by the ALS Association is raising awareness and funds for ALS research.

    The Ice Bucket Challenge launched by the ALS Association is raising awareness and funds for ALS research.

    Ice Bucket Challenge. The ALS Association launched the “world’s largest global social media phenomenon” by encouraging brave individuals to dump ice-cold water on their heads to raise awareness and funds for research into treatments and cures for ALS. This August, the ALS Association re-launched the Ice Bucket Challenge campaign in efforts to raise additional funds and to make this an annual event.

  • ALS Gene Mapping. In a story released yesterday, the global biotech company Biogen is partnering with Columbia University Medical Center to map ALS disease genes. An article from Bloomberg Business describes how using Ice Bucket Money to create “a genetic map of the disease may help reveal the secrets of a disorder that’s not well understood, including how much a person’s genes contribute to the likelihood of developing ALS.” Biogen is also launching a clinical trial for a new ALS drug candidate by the end of the year.
  • New Drug target for ALS. Our next door neighbors at the Gladstone Institutes here in San Francisco published an exciting new finding in the journal PNAS in June. In collaboration with scientists at the University of Michigan, they discovered a new therapeutic target for ALS. They found that a protein called hUPF1 was able to protect brain cells from ALS-induced death by preventing the accumulation of toxic proteins in these cells. In a Gladstone press release, senior author Steve Finkbeiner said, “This is the first time we’ve been able to link this natural monitoring system to neurodegenerative disease. Leveraging this system could be a strategic therapeutic target for diseases like ALS and frontotemporal dementia.”
  • Stem cells, ALS, and clinical trials. Clive Svendsen at Cedars-Sinai is using gene therapy and stem cells to develop a cure for ALS. His team is currently working in mice to determine the safety and effectiveness of the treatment, but they hope to move into clinical trials with humans by the end of the year. For more details, check out our blog Genes + Cells: Stem Cells deliver genes as drugs and hope for ALS.

These are only a few of the exciting and promising stories that have come out in the past year. It’s encouraging and comforting to see, however, that progress towards a cure for ALS is definitely moving forward.

Brain’s Own Activity Can Fuel Growth of Deadly Brain Tumors, CIRM-Funded Study Finds

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Not all brain tumors are created equal—some are far more deadly than others. Among the most deadly is a type of tumor called high-grade glioma or HGG. Most distressingly, HGG’s are the leading cause of brain tumor death in both children and adults. And despite extraordinary progress in cancer research as a whole, survival rates for those diagnosed with an HGG have yet to improve.

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But recent research from Stanford University scientists could one day help move the needle—and give renewed hope to the patients and their families affected by this devastating disease.

The study, published today in the journal Cell, found that one key driver for HGG’s deadly diagnosis is that the tumor can be stimulated to grow by the brain’s own neural activity—specifically the nerve activity in the brain’s cerebral cortex.

Michelle Monje, senior author of the study that was funded in part by two grants from CIRM, was initially surprised by these results, as they run counter to how most types of tumors grow. As she explained in today’s press release:

“We don’t think about bile production promoting liver cancer growth, or breathing promoting the growth of lung cancer. But we’ve shown that brain function is driving these brain cancers.”
 


By analyzing tumor cells extracted from HGG patients, and engrafting it onto mouse models in the lab, the researchers were able to pinpoint how the brain’s own activity was driving tumor growth.

The culprit: a protein called neuroligin-3 that appeared to be calling the shots. There are four distinct types of HGGs that affect the brain in vastly different ways—and have vastly different molecular and genetic characteristics. Interestingly, says Monje, neuroligin-3 played the same role in all of them.


What was so disturbing to the research team, says Monje, is that neuroligin-3 is an essential protein for overall brain development. Specifically, it helps maintain healthy growth and repair of brain tissue over time. In order to grow, HGG tumors hijack this critical protein.

The research team came to this conclusion after a series of experiments that delved deep into the molecular mechanisms that guide both brain activity and brain tumor development. They first employed a technique called optogenetics, whereby scientists use genetic manipulation to insert light-sensitive proteins into the brain cells, or neurons, of interest. This allowed scientists to activate these neurons—or deactivate them—at the ‘flick of a switch.’

When applying this technique to the tumor-engrafted mouse models, the team could then see that tumors grew significantly better when the neurons were switched on. The next step was to narrow it down to why. Additional biochemical analyses and testing on the mouse models confirmed that neuroligin-3 was being hijacked by the tumor to spur growth.

And when they dug deeper into the connection between neuroligin-3 and cancer, they found something even more disturbing. A detailed look at the Cancer Genome Atlas (a large public database of the genetics of human cancers), they found that HGG patients with higher levels of neuroligin-3 in their brain had shorter survival rates than those with lower levels of the same protein.

These results, while highlighting the particularly nefarious nature of this class of brain tumors, also presents enormous opportunity for researchers. Specifically, Monje hopes her team and others can find a way to block or nullify the presence of neuroligin-3 in the regions surrounding the tumor, creating a kind of barrier that can keep the size of the tumor in check. 


Bringing out the Big Guns: Scientists Weigh in on How Best to Combat Deadly Diseases of the Brain

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Despite our best efforts, diseases of the brain are on the rise. Neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases threaten not only to devastate our aging population, but also cripple our economy. Meanwhile, the causes of conditions such as autism remain largely unknown. And brain and spinal cord injuries continue to increase—leaving their victims with precious few options for improving their condition.

This special review issue of addresses some of the key challenges for translational neuroscience and the path from bench to beside. [Credit: Cell Press]

This special review issue of Neuron addresses some of the key challenges for translational neuroscience and the path from bench to beside. [Credit: Cell Press]

We need to do better.

The scientific community agrees. And in a special issue of the journal Neuron, the field’s leading researchers lay out how to accelerate much-needed therapies to the many millions who will be affected by brain disease or injury in the coming years.

The journal’s leadership argues that now is the time to renew efforts in this field. Especially worrying, say experts, is the difficulty in translating research breakthroughs into therapies.

But Neuron Editor Katja Brose is optimistic that the answers are out there—we just need to bring them to light:

“There is resounding agreement that we need new approaches and strategies, and there are active efforts, discussion and experimentation aimed at making the process of therapeutic development more efficient and effective.”

Below are three papers highlighted in the special journal, each giving an honest assessment of how far we’ve come, and what we need to do to take the next step.

Fast-tracking Drug Development. In this perspective, authors from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Salk Institute—including CIRM grantee Fred Gage—discuss the main takeaways from an IOM-sponsored workshop aimed at finding new avenues for accelerating treatments for brain diseases to the clinic.

The main conclusion, according to the review’s lead author Steve Hyman, is a crucial cultural shift—various stakeholders in academia, government and industry must stop thinking of themselves as competitors, but instead as allies. Only then will the field be able to successfully shepherd a breakthrough from the lab bench and to the patient’s bedside.

Downsized Divisions’ Dangerous Effects. Next, an international team of neuroscientists focuses their perspective on the recent trend of pharmaceutical companies to cut back on funding for neuroscience research. The reasoning: neurological diseases are far more difficult than other conditions, and proving to be too costly and too time-consuming to be worth continued effort.

The solution, says author Dennis Choi of State University of New York Stonybrook, is a fundamental policy change in the way that market returns of neurological disease drug development are regulated. But Choi argues that such a shift cannot be achieved without a concerted effort by patient advocates and nonprofits to lead the charge. As he explains:

“The broader neuroscience community and patient stakeholders should advocate for the crafting and implementation of these policy changes. Scientific and patient group activism has been successful in keeping the development of therapies in other areas—such as HIV and cancer—appropriately on track, but this type of sector-wide activism would be a novel step for the neuroscience community.”

Indeed, here at CIRM we have long helped support the patient community—a wonderful collection of individuals and organizations advocating for advances in stem cell research. We are humbled and honored that so many patients and patient advocates have stepped forward as stem cell champions as we move towards the clinic.

The Road to Preclinical Diagnosis. Finally, we hear from Harvard University neuroscientists highlighting how far the research has come—even in the face of such extraordinary difficulty.

Specifically focused on Alzheimer’s disease, the authors touch on the discoveries of protein markers, such as amyloid-beta and tau, that serve as an indicator of neurodegeneration. They make the important point that because Alzheimer’s is almost certainly is present before the onset of physical symptoms, the ultimate goal of researchers should be to find a way to diagnose the disease before it has progressed too far.

“[Here we] highlight the remarkable advances in our ability to detect evidence of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain, prior to clinical symptoms of the disease, and to predict those at greatest risk for cognitive decline,” explained lead author Reisa Sperling.

The common thread between these perspectives, say Neuron editors in an accompanying editorial, is that “by leveraging shared resources, tools and knowledge and approaching these difficult problems collaboratively, we can achieve more together.”

A sentiment that we at CIRM fully support—and one that we will continue to foster as we push forward with our mission to accelerate stem cell-based therapies to patients in need.