Spinal cord repair from endogenous stem cells in the spinal niche

人类脊髓损伤会导致永久性的功能丧失。尽管脊髓中存在类似干细胞的细胞。相比之下，斑马鱼在损伤后恢复了完全的游泳能力，它们的脊髓干细胞产生了有助于修复的新神经元。在这里，我们计划确定作用于鱼类干细胞的信号，然后用它们来改善人类干细胞（在培养皿中）的反应和大鼠模型的脊髓修复。在项目过程中，我们将开发有助于我们研究的工具，同时也有助于我们社区同事的工作：我们将开发可用于驱动干细胞进入修复类型的小蛋白质，我们将采用新的显微镜技术来监测活鱼和老鼠的修复过程，我们将直接从人类脊髓材料中开发新的干细胞系。该项目将确定可用于临床试验的修复因子。我们的团队由来自英国、德国、比利时、法国和波兰的同事组成，其中包括基础神经科学家和神经外科医生。

Spinal cord injury in humans leads to permanent loss of function. This is despite the presence ofstem cell like cells in the spinal cord. In contrast, zebrafish regain full swimming capacity after alesion and their spinal stem cells make new neurons that contribute to the repair.Here we plan to identify the signals acting on the stem cells in the fish to then use them to improvethe reaction of stem cells of humans (in a dish) and spinal cord repair in rat models. In the courseof the project, we will develop tools that will aid our research, but also contribute to the work of ourcolleagues in the community: We will develop small proteins that can be used to drive stem cellsinto a repair type, we will adapt a new microscopy technique to monitor repair in live fish and ratsas it happens, and we will develop new stem cell lines directly from human spinal cord material.This project will identify repair factors that could then be taken into clinical trials. Our teamcomprises colleagues from the UK, Germany, Belgium, France and Poland, among them basicneuroscientists and neurosurgeons.