FFB Researcher Discovers Way to Predict the Fate of Neural Progenitor Cells, Illuminating their Potential as Rods and Cones
February 18, 2010
Researchers have found a way to predict the fate of neural progenitor cells, before they actually divide. Progenitor cells have the ability to become specific cells, like rods and cones, which are needed to process light in the eye. The ability to predict the path a cell takes when it divides means researchers are one step closer to transforming these cells into the rods and cones needed to restore sight to patients with retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. Their findings are published in the March issue of the scientific journal Nature Methods.
FFB grantee, Dr. Michel Cayouette and his postdoctoral fellow Dr. Francisco Gomes, in collaboration with Drs. Badrinath Roysam and Andrew Cohen from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY) hypothesized that neural progenitor cells that are slated to divide and become specific cells, like photoreceptors (rods and cones), are different from the neural progenitor cells that will divide to become more neural progenitor cells. If this were true, then it should be possible to predict the outcome of the cell division and select cells that will create the preferred kind of daughter cells.
These findings are significant because this method could help predict the development of retinal progenitor cells (RPCs), a type of neural progenitor cell, which are the forerunners of rods and cones. Turning RPCs into rods and cones involves two very different steps: one, to make the new photoreceptors that are needed for therapy, and the other, to make more RPCs so that the supply of rod and cone forerunners is not rapidly depleted. Until now, engineering these transformations in the laboratory has been unpredictable, because the RPCs that can follow one path or the other look very much alike.
To test this possibility, they recorded the development of retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) using long-term videomicroscopy (video recording through a microscope), and Drs. Roysam and Cohen developed a computer program that recognizes subtle differences in the way RPCs behave just before they divide. Remarkably, they were able to predict whether RPCs will divide to produce more RPCs or become photoreceptors with nearly 100% accuracy. This method could be invaluable for isolating purified populations of progenitor cells that are already programmed to create photoreceptors but not progenitor cells, or vice-versa.
This would have two huge benefits: one, creating a more efficient route to producing rods and cones for replacement therapy, and the other, opening the door to identification of novel genes that determine which path RPC divisions will take.
This article in Nature Methods can be viewed online at: www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html
Dr. Michel Cayouette is Director of the Cellular Neurobiology Research Unit at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM). His work is supported by grants from the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Dr. Cayouette is also a professor at the Université de Montréal.
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