A pobación 1% of the population live off times of reality, periods characterized by paranoia and hallucinations, both visual and auditory. Are the characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia, a mental disorder, though researchers are studying more than a century, remains largely unknown.
A team of Salk Institute for Biological Studies (La Jolla, California) has been achieved, thanks to cell reprogramming, be one step closer to understanding the biology behind this disease. And found that, indeed, schizophrenia is a genetic disorder.
explains Fred Gage, coordinator of the work, "have become the first skin cells into neurons of schizophrenic patients, a model that allowed us to observe that there is a deficit in the way that neurons the victims are connected to each other, and has revealed new genes involved in disease. "
The team published their research in the journal Nature , skin cells from the four schizophrenics. Using the reprogramming techniques became iPS cells (induced pluripotent stem cells), which is the ability to be converted into any other type of cell and cultured for them to become neurons. This technique allows back in time and take adult cells into a state similar to embryonic stem cells.
repeated the same process of healthy people and then compared the neurons collected each other. "We found that neurons in schizophrenics were different and were connected to each other worse," said Kristen Brennand, one of the authors.
"Nobody knows the extent to which environmental factors may contribute to the development of schizophrenia, but to build this model, we have been able to take that aspect of the equation and focus only on biological and genetic causes," says research.
Thus, "we identified almost 600 genes whose activity was poorly regulated in isolated neurons of schizophrenic patients. 25% of genes had been previously associated with disease, but others do not Dide Brennand. To Gage "This clearly demonstrates that schizophrenia in genetic disease, which is a neuronal dysfunction that is independent of the environment."
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