打开通往心灵的窗户：基因探针滴眼液

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Researchers publish MRI images of genes in action in the living brain  
Published: Tuesday, 1-Apr-2008

Biologists have just confirmed what poets have known for centuries: eyes really are windows of the soul - or at least of the brain.
In a new study published in the April 2008 print issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), Harvard researchers describe the development of gene probe eye drops that - for the first time - make it possible to monitor and detect tissue repair in the brain of living organisms using MRI. Current methods involve a risky, invasive, and relatively slow process of penetrating the skull to extract tissue samples and then examining those samples in a laboratory.

\"We hope our study provides a tool for better treatments of neurological diseases, diagnosis, prognosis during therapy, and improved delivery of therapeutic agents to the brain,\" said Philip Liu of Harvard, one of the researchers involved in the study. Liu also said that more research is necessary to determine exactly how these gene probes reach brain tissue.

In this report, Harvard researchers describe how they link a relatively common MRI probe (superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles) to a short DNA sequence that binds to proteins in cells responsible for brain tissue repair (glia and astrocytes). Then, researchers used the eye drops on mice with conditions that cause \"leaks\" in the blood-brain barrier. When the animals' brains were scanned using MRI, brain repair activity was visible. Glia and astrocytes help repair brain and nerve tissue, and have a role in numerous diseases and disorders that cause at least microscopic breaches in the blood-brain barrier, including traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, stroke, cardiac arrest, and glioma, among others. Furthermore, the researchers believe that the probes may also help diagnose thinning of vascular walls in brains, which occurs as Alzheimer's disease progresses.

\"When people are sick, the last thing you want to do is puncture their skulls for a biopsy,\" said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, \"but sometimes this is unavoidable. These probes of genes in action go a long way toward ushering in an age where extracting brain tissue to identify a disease will seem as crude as when doctors measured skulls to diagnose a mental disease.\"

http://www.faseb.org/
主标题：2008年，4月1日消息：研究人员们公布活体脑组织中基因活动的MRI影像
副标题：基因探针滴眼液，有望打开神经疾病无创诊断之门

众所周知,神经系统疾病的诊疗是相对复杂的。很多时候，为了能最终确诊，患者们常不得不接受颅骨穿刺脑组织活检，而该项检查是有创伤性的，具有一定的风险，同时耗时也偏长。2008年4月出版的“美国实验生物学会联合会”(“FASEB”)杂志传来一个好消息说，目前哈佛医学院的生物学家们所进行的一项关于“基因探针滴眼液”的研究有望引领我们步入一个无创确诊神经疾病的时代。

神经胶质和星形细胞，在许多可以导致至少显微镜下出现血脑屏障破裂的疾病或功能紊乱中，起着脑和神经组织修复的作用。这些疾病包括：脑外伤(TBI)、多发性硬化（MS）、心脏停搏、胶质瘤等等。研究中，研究人员们先将“超顺磁氧化铁纳米颗粒MRI探针”与上述神经细胞内的小股DNxxx段相连接，制成“基因探针滴眼液”。然后将滴眼液滴于有血脑屏障\"渗漏\"情况的小鼠眼内，吸收入脑组织。最后再通过MRI扫描小鼠大脑以观察神经修复相关基因活动。

研究人员们相信，该“基因探针”还可用于作为“阿尔兹海默氏病”病情进展标志之一的脑血管壁变薄的诊断。他们希望该项研究能对神经系统疾病更优化的处理有所帮助，包括诊断、治疗、预后以及更具疗效的药物的诞生。至于“基因探针”是如何精确抵达参与修复活动的脑域的这一问题，尚需更多研究，以进一步确定其过程细节。
http://www.faseb.org/