BALTIMORE, July 19 (UPI) -- The discovery of a protein essential to stem cells' ability to differentiate and regenerate tissues may shed light on aging, as well as diseases such as muscular dystrophy, researchers report.
Boosting the function of the protein β1-integrin motivated muscle regeneration in mice with age-related injuries and disease, according to a press release.
In experiments with mice, the researchers found one of 28 integrins -- β1 -- links stem cells to their environment, interacting with fibroblast growth factor, or FGF, to promote the growth of cells, as well as restoration of muscle after an injury.
Boosting the protein in old mice with injuries helped heal muscle, and mice with muscular dystrophy also showed improvement in muscle strength, suggesting a potential method of treatment for people with muscular regeneration issues.
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"We provide here a proof-of-principle study that may be broadly applicable to muscle diseases that involve [stem cell] niche dysfunction," the authors write in the study.
For the study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers at Johns Hopkins University started by removing β1-integrin from a stem cell to understand its effects -- which turned out cause other proteins necessary for differentiation to disappear.
After confirming that cells without the protein were missing a variety of other essential proteins, the researchers injected an antibody that boosts β1-integrin function into the muscles of injured, aged mice. In mice that received the injection, muscle regeneration increased by as much as 50 percent over mice that did not receive an injection.
When this was done in mice with muscular dystrophy, muscle strength increased by about 35 percent, researchers report.
While future research will seek to understand how β1-integrin helps stem cells interact with their environment, they write in the study that "further refinement is needed for this method to become a viable treatment."
