{"id":6398,"date":"2015-10-12T08:29:05","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T08:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=6398"},"modified":"2015-10-12T08:29:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T08:29:05","slug":"patients-skin-cells-helped-scientists-to-create-aged-brain-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/patients-skin-cells-helped-scientists-to-create-aged-brain-cells\/","title":{"rendered":"Patients\u2019 Skin Cells helped scientists to create aged brain cells"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fibroblasts<\/a>
Fibroblasts (cells in connective tissue) from elderly human donors are directly converted into induced neurons, shown. (Source: Salk Institute for Biological Studies)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found a way to create aged brain cells from patients\u2019 skin samples for the first time.\u00a0 Fibroblasts, which are cells in connective tissue, from older people are directly converted into induced neurons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis lets us keep age-related signatures in the cells so that we can more easily study the effects of aging on the brain,\u201d said study author Rusty Gage, a professor in the Salk Institute\u2019s Laboratory of Genetics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers believe this technique will be very helpful to scientists studying age-related diseases, such as Parkinson\u2019s and Alzheimer\u2019s. This news was published in Cell Steam Cell.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an older approach, skin cells were taken and turned into induced pluripotent stem cells, which could then be turned into any cell in the body, such as brain cells, for further study.\u00a0 However, this technique did not guarantee cells with epigenetic signatures of older cells.\u00a0 This made it difficult to study the aging of the human brain because researchers couldn\u2019t create aged brain cells.<\/span><\/p>\n

[pullquote]Researchers believe this technique will be very helpful to scientists studying age-related diseases, such as Parkinson\u2019s and Alzheimer\u2019s.[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n

\u201cAs researchers starting using these cells more, it became clear that during the process of reprogramming to create stem cells the cell was also rejuvenated in other ways,\u201d said author Jerome Mertens, a postdoctoral research fellow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The team attempted a new technique, and showed that\u2019s it\u2019s possible to directly convert skin cells to neurons, completely bypassing the stem cell precursor state.<\/span><\/p>\n

To show this the scientists used both methods to create brain cells from skin cells of 19 people, aged from birth to 89.\u00a0 In the first technique they prompted the cells to turn into brain cells using the induced pluripotent stem cell approach, and in the second they used the direct conversion method.\u00a0 After, they compared the patterns of gene expression in the resulting neurons with cells taken from autopsied brains.<\/span><\/p>\n

Patterns in the neurons resulting from the induced pluripotent stem cell technique were indistinguishable between young and old samples.\u00a0 Different patterns of gene expression were recognizable using the direct conversion method, depending on the age of the person they were created from.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe neurons we derived showed differences depending on donor age,\u201d said Mertens. \u201cAnd they actually show changes in gene expression that have been previously implicated in brain aging.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, levels of a nuclear pore protein, called RanBP17, which plays a role in neurodegenerative diseases, were lower in neurons derived from older patients.<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers expect the new method will let scientists create aged heart and liver cells as well, but as of now the work only tested the effectiveness in creating brain cells.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found a way to create aged brain cells from patients\u2019 skin samples for the first time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",600,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons-300x300.png",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",600,600,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",600,600,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",600,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",600,600,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",600,600,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",570,570,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",600,600,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",600,600,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",490,490,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",360,360,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",65,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",600,600,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",96,96,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/bt1510_salk_inducedneurons.png",150,150,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}