PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Scientists may have identified a new opening to intervene in the process of healing peripheral nerve damage with the discovery that an “anti-sense” RNA (AS-RNA) is expressed when nerves are injured. Their experiments in mice show that the AS-RNA helps to regulate how damaged nerves rebuild their coating of myelin, which, like the cladding around a cable or wire, is crucial for making nerves efficient conductors.
Nikos Tapinos, associate professor of neurosurgery in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and senior author of the study in Cell Reports, said his team was able to control expression of the AS-RNA in the lab and therefore the transcription factor Egr2 that prompts myelin-building Schwann cells into action.