Stabilising Survivial

To defeat a deadly disease, researchers attack from all angles. Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) disables young patients’ motor neurons – the cells that link your brain and muscles. With these hindered, basic movement and even breathing can become impossible. Many past prevention tactics have focussed on the dysfunctional gene that causes SMA, but a new angle might prove more fruitful: Researchers found that neurons that can produce more of the appropriately-named ‘survival motor neuron’ protein (SMN, in red) can survive longer. SMN is regularly produced and dismantled, so to boost its efficacy the researchers blocked the proteins that normally break it down, allowing it to linger longer. This maximised SMN’s presence even where its production was limited, like sealing a plug to fill a sink from a slowly dripping tap. And because Lou Gehriig’s disease takes hold in a similar way to SMA, this discovery could pack double the punch.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image by Natalia Rodriguez-Muela
• Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Cell Reports, February 2017