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February 25, 2019
A gene called CCR5 It has been shown that people's ability to recover from stroke is affected. It is the same gene that is at the heart of the recent controversial case of genomes published on the genome in China.
CCR5 plays several roles in the body. In the case of HIV, the gene opens the cell gate into which the virus must enter to infect the immune system. In the brain, its absence also helps neurons to establish new connections. Patients born missing from CCR5 According to an article published in the journal Cell, the gene has recovered better from a mild stroke than patients carrying the gene.
"It's the first time that a human gene is badociated with better recovery after a stroke," said Dr. Stanley Thomas Carmichael, a neurologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, who directed the work.
Dr. Carmichael, who did the work alongside colleagues at Tel Aviv University in Israel, also found that recovery from stroke was faster in mice treated with the anti-HIV drug existing, the maraviroc, which blocks the CCR5 receptor.
"When you have a stroke, part of your brain dies, cutting the connections of these cells with neurons from other regions. That's why stroke patients often suffer from paralysis or lose their speech, "said Dr. Carmichael. & # 39; When CCR5 is missing or blocked, neurons can establish new connections and rewire the brain, allowing patients to recover a lost function. & # 39;
The next step for UCLA scientists will be to launch a clinical trial on the drug's efficacy, maraviroc, in patients who have CCR5 gene. "I think it's the beginning of hope." [for stroke patients]'Scientific American Professor Alcino Silva, neurobiologist at UCLA and co-author of the study, told Scientific American.
the CCR5 the gene has a controversial recent history. By the end of 2018, it appeared that Dr. He Jiankui, then at the Southern University of Science and Technology in China, had used CRISPR to try to modify the CCR5 Human genes at the embryonic stage, supposedly to protect them from HIV infection.
With this new study, scientists are now asking whether the twins born of these experiments have also been cognitively improved.
"The answer is probably yes, it affected their brains," Professor Silva told MIT Technology Review. "The simplest interpretation is that these mutations will likely have an impact on cognitive function in twins."
He said that the exact effect on cognition was impossible to predict, and "that's why it should not be done". His reaction to the news that the CCR5 According to Professor Silva, the gene had been developed in the experiments of Dr. He was one of "visceral repulsion and sadness".
"Cognitive problems are one of the most important unmet needs in medicine. We need drugs, but it's another thing to take normal people and improve them with DNA or chemistry, "he continued. "We just do not know enough to do it. Nature has found a very good balance.
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