Suppressor of Cytokine Signalling-2 (SOCS2) and its role in neuronal development and function

目前对大脑或脊髓的损伤通常会导致永久性损伤，如瘫痪，这在很大程度上是由于神经元在损伤部位无法再生。为了克服这一点，我们正在努力寻找让新神经元生长的方法，要么是从神经系统中存在的干细胞生长，要么是从组织培养中生长的细胞移植。然而，关于神经干细胞如何决定成为神经元或另一种细胞类型，如神经胶质细胞，我们知之甚少，因此我们正在研究影响这一过程的因素，这被称为分化。生长因子是这一过程的重要中介，细胞因子信号转导(SOCS)蛋白的抑制因子在决定细胞对生长因子的反应中起着重要作用。该项目的总体目标是确定SOCS基因，特别是SOCS2在神经系统中神经干细胞向神经元和神经胶质细胞分化、神经元突起生长以及神经元和神经胶质损伤反应中所起的作用。这将在正常细胞和过度表达或不表达SOCS2基因的细胞中进行检测。了解神经生长因子反应的生物学可能最终使我们能够设计出用于脑脊髓损伤或疾病的治疗策略，包括从干细胞生成神经元。

Injury to the brain or spinal cord at present often results in permanent damage, such as paralysis, which is largely due to a failure of neurons to regrow at the injury site. In order to overcome this, we are trying to find ways of making new neurons grow, either from stem cells present in the nervous system or transplanted from cells grown in tissue culture. However, little is known about how a neural stem cell decides to become a neuron or another cell type, such as a glial cell and so we are examining factors which influence this process, which is called differentiation. Growth factors are important mediators of this process and suppressor of cytokine signalling (SOCS) proteins are important in determining how cells respond to growth factors. The overall aims of this project are to determine the role that SOCS genes and in particular, SOCS2 play in neural stem cell differentiation into neurons and glia, neuron process outgrowth and neuronal and glial injury responses in the nervous system. This will be examined in normal cells and cells which over-express or do not express SOCS2 genes. Understanding the biology of neural growth factor responsiveness may eventually allow us to devise therapeutic strategies for use following brain-spinal injury or disease, including generation of neurons from stem cells.