Guangzhou scientists first to receive Huntington's disease transgenic pig model
Release date: 2010-09-17 Source: Ocean Network Disposable Face Mask,Disposable Sterile Face Mask,Medical Surgical Mask,Medical Disposable Face Masks Jiangyin Huashi Medical Equipment Co.,Ltd , https://www.medicalwellcare.com
There is a disease, the patient will "dance and dance" as soon as the disease occurs, and will die after suffering from the pain of 10 to 15 years. What is more terrible is that the disease will be passed down from generation to generation. Its medical name is Huntington's disease, commonly known as "dance disease", and it is an "incurable disease" in the medical profession.
Today, "dancing disease" patients finally see a glimmer of hope. The research team led by Dr. Lai Liangxue, a researcher at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the deputy director of the South China Institute of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, and Li Weijiang, a professor at Emory University in the United States, and Gu Chengwang, a professor at Southern Medical University, successfully obtained the human Huntington. The transgenic porcine model of chorea, and for the first time in the brain of transgenic pigs, found neuronal apoptosis similar to that in human Huntington's brain. This is a world breakthrough in the field. The research results have recently been published in the international authoritative magazine "Human Molecular Genetics".
"Our greatest success is to have the pig suffer from Huntington's disease, so that drug developers have models that can be repeatedly tested to promote the drug development process for the disease." Lai Liangxue said.
Huntington's disease:
It is recognized that there is no case in Guangzhou. Huntington chorea is a slow-onset hereditary neurodegenerative disease. Since the motion-controlled neurons develop lesions, the motion cannot be controlled. "It is recognized by the medical community as 'no solution' and is defined as 'incurable disease' worldwide."
"Huntington's disease is a hand rubbing ankle, like dancing." Lai Liangxue explained, "The age of onset is usually between 35 and 45 years old. It usually dies after 10 to 15 years of onset. Caucasians are the easiest to get this kind of. The incidence rate is seven-tenths of a million. The Chinese also have a certain number of people, but the specific number has not been counted. The disease is hereditary."
Results: Medical research has a model that can be tried and tested. Lai Liang said that because of the high incidence of Huntington's disease in Caucasians, Westerners have invested heavily in this disease.
“Currently, one of the most important difficulties in studying this disease is to 'create' the disease and model it on large animals so that researchers can repeatedly observe the symptoms and pathogenesis of the disease and treat it. Experiments with drugs and means." He said that other international scientists who tried to establish a large animal model of Huntington's disease were unsuccessful.
After Lai Liangxue returned to China, he and his research team invested in the study of a pig model that established Huntington's disease. Currently, they have successfully obtained 6 Huntington's disease GM pigs.
"Commonly explained, our greatest success is to make the pig suffer from Huntington's disease, so that medical researchers have a model that can be repeatedly tested, thus promoting the development of drugs to treat the disease." Lai Liang said, Their next goal is to develop a monkey model with a similar pathogenesis to humans.
As for how far patients are benefiting from this research, Lai Liang said that it depends on the research and development progress of medical researchers using this pig model. "At present, some research institutions in the United States have already been interested in this model."
Contribution: Providing a technical basis for the establishment of a large animal model of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease Lai Liang said that the significance of this research is also to prove that neurological diseases can be tested in pigs. "A vaccine and a drug for this kind of disease can be tested on pigs. Otherwise, even if a drug is developed, it is not known to test it on any animal."
In addition, the establishment of the Huntington's disease pig model provides a technical basis for the establishment of large animal models of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.
"Dance disease is controlled by a single gene," said Lai Liang. "Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are multi-gene controlled. Therefore, it is relatively difficult to establish a pig model, but the two are technically parallel. We can still use the same method to build a pig model of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease."
Next, Lai Liangxue and his team will do a pig model of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. “If it succeeds, it will be even more significant, because both types of illness have more patients.â€
9 people from a family in Chengdu died of this disease According to the Chengdu Business Daily on January 27, 2010, a 32-year-old woman suffered from Huntington's disease in neurosurgery at West China Hospital of Sichuan University. Since 2006, she has been shaking a lot when she walks, often taking two steps forward. At the beginning of last year, her "dance" became bigger and she could not walk on her own. As the tongue keeps stirring, only a small amount of porridge, rice soup and egg flowers can be swallowed.
This deadly chorea has taken 9 lives from two generations of their family. Ten years ago, the woman’s mother died of the same symptoms; 25 years ago, her grandfather died of the same symptoms; her mother and her grandfather, the family, had 23 members, 9 of whom have died Three people were seriously ill. Now the third generation has "danced".