A protein that helps build the brain in infants and children may aid efforts to restore damage from multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurodegenerative diseases, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.
In a mouse model of MS, researchers found that the protein, CXCR4, is essential for repairing myelin, a protective sheath that covers nerve cell branches. MS and other disorders damage myelin, and this damage is linked to loss of the branches inside the myelin.
"In MS patients, myelin repair occurs inconsistently for reasons that aren't clear," says senior author Robyn Klein, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine and of neurobiology. "Understanding the nature of that problem is a priority because when myelin isn't repaired, the chances that an MS flare-up will inflict lasting harm seem to increase."
The findings appear online in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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