{"id":13624,"date":"2014-11-24T18:55:33","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T00:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/?p=13624"},"modified":"2014-12-02T14:44:44","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T20:44:44","slug":"lab-grown-neurons-open-new-possibilities-for-autism-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/lab-grown-neurons-open-new-possibilities-for-autism-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"Lab-Grown Neurons Open New Possibilities for Autism Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"autismo1\"Autism<\/strong> is one of the most puzzling disorders in the already confusing world of psychopathology and neurology. Its categorization has shown such a huge challenge that in the new fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders<\/strong> has been classified as a spectrum of disorders, known as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)<\/strong>, which ranges from the most severe forms of the disease up to Asperger syndrome<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It is easy to understand the difficulty of treating a disorder which etiology remains ambiguous, for which have been found more than 500 genetic variants that increases the risk of developing the disorder, while it is not yet understood how they contribute to it. For now, the specific patient treatment offers the best chance of reducing disability caused by autism<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego, collected cells from an 8-year old autistic <\/strong>boy and turned them into neurons in the lab; using the recent discovery that allows researchers to induce pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs<\/strong>) from adult cells, which can then be transformed into almost any cell type. The cells were originally isolated from a baby teeth, collected and sent to the laboratory by the boy\u2019s parents. The cells from the dental pulp were turned into iPSCs and then turned into neurons.<\/p>\n

Under the microscope, the lab-grown neurons showed significant characteristics associated with autism<\/strong>. They had fewer branches and fewer synapses and fired less than neurons made the same way from people without autism. The researchers found in the boy\u2019s genome a mutation that disrupts a gene called TRPC6<\/strong> \u2013 linked to the flux of calcium ions into cells \u2013 that could be the reason of these abnormalities.<\/p>\n

Using a drug named hyperforin, which is derived from the herb St. John\u2019s wort, the researchers were able to increase the activity of TRPC6 gene<\/strong> in the lab-grown neurons. The treatment results showed that the neuron\u2019s appearance and firing activity became more normal. After this achievement, the boy was treated with the herb. After one month, his father, therapists and school reported an improvement in the boy\u2019s focus and social behavior.<\/p>\n

The researchers believe TRPC6 mutation<\/strong> is a likely culprit in this boy\u2019s autism, which was never before linked with the disease. However the researchers explained that the study was not meant to be a rigorous trial. They noted that while TRPC6<\/strong> is one of the genes that are affected, they think is not the only one. As mention before, there are many gene variants associated with the disease and the majority of cases do not present the same genetic causes. Therefore, while St. John\u2019s wort may has worked for one patient, is unlikely to be useful in anyone without this specific mutation.<\/p>\n

In an optimistic scenario, this strategy, could be refined and used in the future to create tailored treatments for each patient , in which doctors use a patient\u2019s genome and neurons derived from iPS cells to make a diagnosis and select the most effective drugs for that particular patient. However, even if that would be possible, costs would make this approach unreachable; as the researchers estimate that creating and characterizing neurons for a patient would cost about 100,000 USD.<\/p>\n

So, what good comes from focusing on this type of specific treatments for this impressively diverse disease?<\/p>\n

The challenge is helping to identify different categories of autism with different underlying causes; also find the biological processes that are affected, which may be probably less than genetic variants. Recent studies suggest that many of the gene mutations tied to autism converge on just two biological processes: regulating gene activity and synaptic communication between neurons (TRPC6 wasn\u2019t one of the genes founded before, but it would fall in this second category).<\/p>\n

The enormous quantity of gene mutations makes impossible to create specific drugs to each one. The hope is identify pathways, so instead of doing 600 different drugs that would be impossible, make four or five in different combinations to treat most people with the disease.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Through:<\/strong> Wired<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Autism is one of the most puzzling disorders in the already confusing world of psychopathology and neurology. Its categorization has shown such a huge challenge that in the new fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has been classified as a spectrum of disorders, known as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-13624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualidad-en-la-salud","tag-genomica","cat-3-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13624"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13731,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13624\/revisions\/13731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}