2020/02/19
Aichi Medical University School of Medicine
Keio University School of Medicine
Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine
Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development
A research group from the Department of Neurology, Aichi Medical University School of Medicine, led by Associate Professor Yohei Okada and Researcher Kazunari Onodera (Visiting Researcher at the Department of Neurology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine), has created a new disease model for spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA). In a joint research project with Keio University School of Medicine, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, and The University of Tokyo, the group generated iPS cells from patients with the intractable neurodegenerative disease SBMA and differentiated them into motor neurons. Additionally, they conducted a comprehensive transcriptome analysis and found that synaptic pathology is deeply involved in the neurodegeneration of SBMA. This research is expected to lead to a deeper understanding of the pathology and the future development of therapies targeting synapses.
The results of this research were published online in the British scientific journal "Molecular Brain" on February 19, 2020.
Please see below for the full press release.