Sylene stenophylla plant regenerated from tissue of fossil fruit

This photo provided by the Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences show a Sylene stenophylla plant regenerated from tissue of fossil fruit. 

The plant has been regenerated from tissues found in a squirrel burrow that had been stuck in Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years.

 It is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated and it is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds.

Picture: The Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences / AP

Reversing age-associated effects in MS patients

New research highlights the possibility of reversing ageing in the central nervous system for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.

The study is published today, 06 January, in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

As we get older, our bodies' ability to regenerate decreases. This is not only true for our skin (which is evident in the wrinkles that develop as we age) but also true for other tissues in the body, including the regenerative processes in the brain.

For diseases which often span several decades and are affected by regenerative processes, such as multiple sclerosis, this can have massive implications.

In multiple sclerosis, the insulating layers that protect nerve fibres in the brain, known as myelin sheaths, become damaged.

The loss of myelin in the brain prevents nerve fibres from sending signals properly and will eventually lead to the loss of the nerve fibre itself.

However, early in the disease, a regenerative process, or remyelination, occurs and the myelin sheaths are restored. Unfortunately, as people with MS age, remyelination decreases significantly, resulting in more nerve fibres being permanently lost.

However, a new study in mice shows that the age-associated decline in the regeneration of the nerve's myelin sheath, or remyelination, is reversible.

The proof of principle study demonstrates that when old mice are exposed to the inflammatory cells (called monocytes) from young mice, the ageing remyelination process can be reversed.

Professor Robin Franklin, Director of the MS Society's Cambridge Centre for Myelin Repair at the University of Cambridge, said: "What we have shown in our study, carried out in collaboration with Dr Amy Wagers and colleagues at Harvard University, is that the age-associated decline in remyelination is reversible.

We found that remyelination in old adult mice can be made to work as efficiently as it does in young adult mice.

"For individuals with MS, this means that in theory regenerative therapies will work throughout the duration of the disease.

Specifically, it means that remyelination therapies do not need to be based on stem cell transplantation since the stem cells already present in the brain and spinal cord can be made to regenerate myelin - regardless of the patient's age."

MS affects approximately 100,000 people in the United Kingdom, 400,000 in the United States and several million worldwide. Symptoms of the disease can include the loss of physical skills, sensation, vision, bladder control, and intellectual abilities.


More information: The paper 'Rejuvenation of regeneration in the aging central nervous system' will be published in the 06 January edition of Cell Stem Cell.

UCLA researchers eliminate major roadblock in regenerative medicine

In regenerative medicine, large supplies of safe and reliable human embryonic stem (hES) cells are needed for implantation into patients, but the field has faced challenges in developing cultures that can consistently grow and maintain clinical-grade stem cells.

Standard culture systems use mouse “feeder” cells and media containing bovine sera to cultivate and maintain hES cells, but such animal product — based media can contaminate the cells. And because of difficulties in precise quality control, each batch of the medium can introduce new and unwanted variations.

Now, a team of stem cell biologists and engineers from UCLA has identified an optimal combination and concentration of small-molecule inhibitors to support the long-term quality and maintenance of hES cells in feeder-free and serum-free conditions. The researchers used a feedback system control (FSC) scheme to innovatively and efficiently select the small-molecule inhibitors from a very large pool of possibilities.

The research findings, published today in the journal Nature Communications, represent a major advance in the quest to broadly transition regenerative medicine from the benchtop to the clinic.

“What is significant about this work is that we’ve been able to very rapidly develop a chemically defined culture medium to replace serum and feeders for cultivating clinical-grade hES cells, thereby removing a major roadblock in the area of regenerative medicine,” said Chih-Ming Ho, the Ben Rich — Lockheed Martin Professor at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Unlike current animal product — based media, the new medium is a “defined” culture medium — one in which every component is known and traceable. This is important for clinical applications and as drugs or cells enter the world of regulatory affairs, including good manufacturing practice compliance and Food and Drug Administration supervision.

Breakthrough, nerve connections are regenerated after spinal cord injury

Researchers for the first time have induced robust regeneration of nerve connections that control voluntary movement after spinal cord injury, showing the potential for new therapeutic approaches to paralysis and other motor function impairments.

In a study on rodents, the UC Irvine, UC San Diego and Harvard University team achieved this breakthrough by turning back the developmental clock in a molecular pathway critical for the growth of corticospinal tract nerve connections.

They did this by deleting an enzyme called PTEN (a phosphatase and tensin homolog), which controls a molecular pathway called mTOR that is a key regulator of cell growth. PTEN activity is low early during development, allowing cell proliferation. PTEN then turns on when growth is completed, inhibiting mTOR and precluding any ability to regenerate.

Trying to find a way to restore early-developmental-stage cell growth in injured tissue, Zhigang He, a senior neurology researcher at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, first showed in a 2008 study that blocking PTEN in mice enabled the regeneration of connections from the eye to the brain after optic nerve damage.

He then partnered with Oswald Steward of UCI and Binhai Zheng of UCSD to see if the same approach could promote nerve regeneration in injured spinal cord sites. Results of their study appear online in Nature Neuroscience.

“Until now, such robust nerve regeneration has been impossible in the spinal cord,” said Steward, anatomy & neurobiology professor and director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UCI. “Paralysis and loss of function from spinal cord injury has been considered untreatable, but our discovery points the way toward a potential therapy to induce regeneration of nerve connections following spinal cord injury in people.”