Chicago, September 12: US researchers have discovered two genes associated with repairing the damaged central nervous systems of mice with multiple sclerosis, according to a study presented at a conference in Germany.
The findings offer new hope for developing more effective therapies and predicting the outcomes of how particular patients will respond to the debilitating disease.
“It’s possible that the identification of these genes may provide the first important clue as to why some patients with MS do well, while others do not,” said study author Allan Bieber, a neuroscientist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
“While we’re still in the early stages of this research, it could eventually lead to the development of useful therapies that stimulate or inhibit these genetic pathways in patients with MS.”
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease, which attacks the central nervous system. Previous research has shown that some of this damage can be repaired by the body even without therapeutic intervention.
Bieber’s team studied mice with a chronic, progressive MS-like disease and mapped the genes of those which spontaneously repaired the damage to the central nervous system and retained most neurological function.
They found two strong genetic determinants of this good disease outcome.
s “The genetic data indicates that good central nervous system repair results from stimulation of one genetic pathway and inhibition of another genetic pathway,” Bieber said in a statement yesterday.
–Agencies