Is the brain out of order? Inhale the stem cells!
Scientists suggest inhaling stem cells through the noseMembrane
Scientific groups all over the world insist that stem cells are a panacea for all diseases, and publish articles about new methods of obtaining them. But at the same time, rarely anyone thinks about how to deliver them, for example, to the brain. The new method developed by German and American scientists promises to be the simplest and safest.
There are actually not so many options for delivering stem cells to the central organ of the human nervous system. You can insert them through holes that need to be drilled into the skull, but this is not only painful, but also dangerous. You can let the "newcomers" into the body through the circulatory system. However, in this case, only a small part of the stem cells will reach their destination.
In the nose, there are natural "moves". In the upper part of the nasal cavity there is a lattice plate, a bone outgrowth separating the nose from the brain. It is dotted with holes the diameter of a pinhead, through which nerve fibers and connective tissue come to the surface of the cavity.
Dr. Lusine Danielyan from the University Hospital of Tübingen and her colleagues suggested that not only bacteria and viruses, but also stem cells can thus enter the brain.
Although the sections of the nasal cavity and the human brain are shown here
(as well as ways of penetration of stem cells into the brain),
it's too early to say that the new technique is applicable to people
(illustration by New Scientist).
The idea was immediately implemented on laboratory mice. To do this, the researchers dropped a certain amount of a suspension of fluorescent stem cells into the noses of experimental rodents. Thanks to natural mechanisms, the cells rose to the upper sections to the lattice plate.
Some of them migrated to the olfactory bulb (the part of the brain that detects and deciphers odors) and to the cerebrospinal fluid "lining" the skull. Gradually, a fairly large number of stem cells penetrated into deep areas of the brain. "We found that they squeezed through holes whose diameter was much smaller than the cells themselves," says Danielyan.
To further facilitate the passage of stem cells and let in more of them, biologists treated the nasal membrane of mice with the enzyme hyaluronidase, which weakened the connection between epithelial cells. As a result, about three times as many stem cells have passed into the brain.
Another participant in the study, as well as the recipient of a patent for a new technology, was William Frey from the University of Minnesota. The full list of authors of the work can be found in the article published in the European Journal of Cell Biology (photo by Erika Gratz).
It should be noted that other scientists have already proved that therapeutic proteins, for example, neuron growth factor, can be injected into the brain of patients in a similar way. If both of these studies are duplicated on a person, then after a while it will be possible to do without surgery, while repeated doses of cells and substances can simply be instilled into the nasal passages.
However, there should be a proverbial spoon in any barrel of honey. Dr. John Sinden, chief researcher of the British company ReNeuron, spoke about the flip side of this technique. He agrees that it is necessary to develop new technologies for supplying stem cells to the brain. "However, if they accidentally get into the wrong place, they can lead to the appearance of tumors. It is necessary to find out where the cells in the brain and other parts of the body are moving to understand if this is a problem," Sinden notes.
Source: New ScientistPortal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru