Regrowth of Damaged neurons

Figuring out how to trigger regrowth of damaged neurons remains one of the biggest challenges of neuroscience. Now, researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a protein that is required to set off a chain reaction that results in the regrowth of damaged nerve cell branches. To study how peripheral nerve cells repaired damage, they grew the neurons in culture in large groups called spots (pictured). In results published in Cell, the scientists show that the key to this regrowth is a protein known as HDAC5 which, when it leaves the nucleus in damaged peripheral nerve cells, moves to the site of injury in the neuron to help create microtubules to repair the damage. It also turns on genes to activate regrowth. When the researchers trapped HDAC5 in the nucleus, it was unable to promote regrowth. Nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord don't produce HDAC5, and figuring out how to activate this protein could be key to helping neural injuries repair themselves, the researchers said.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1c63zJ1
Journal article: Injury-Induced HDAC5 Nuclear Export Is Essential for Axon Regeneration. Cell, 2013. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.10.004
Image credit: Yongcheol Cho, PhD/Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis