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Mouse Study by Society-Funded Team Pinpoints Important Molecule in Myelin Repair

June 8, 2021

Researchers at the City University of New York’s Neuroscience Initiative Advanced Science Research Center and their international collaborators have pinpointed a molecule, called ten-eleven-translocation 1 (TET1), that is active in myelin-making cells especially after injury, and is crucial to the formation of new myelin. Myelin is the substance that surrounds nerve fibers and is a target of the immune response that occurs in multiple sclerosis. In older mice – or in younger, genetically modified mice – TET1 levels declined and myelin formation was impaired. Aging is emerging as one of the factors that may eventually limit natural myelin repair in people with MS.

This team is studying TET1 further to determine whether strategies targeting this molecule can help to restore function lost to age, or to MS and other diseases. This study is partly funded by the National MS Society through a postdoctoral research fellowship.

Read more from City University of New York

"TET1-mediated DNA hydroxymethylation regulates adult remyelination in mice," by (Society research fellow) Sarah Moyon, Rebecca Frawley, Damien Marechal, Dennis Huang, Katy L. H. Marshall-Phelps, Linde Kegel, Sunniva M. K. Bøstrand, Boguslawa Sadowski, Yong-Hui Jiang, David A. Lyons, Wiebke Möbius & Patrizia Casaccia, was published in Nature Communications on June 7, 2021 (volume 12, Article number:3359) and can be read by anyone without a subscription.

About Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system. Symptoms range from numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis, and there is currently no cure for MS. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted, but advances in research and treatment are leading to better understanding and moving us closer to a world free of MS. An estimated 1 million people live with MS in the United States. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, and it affects women three times more than men.

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