To regenerate muscle, cellular garbage men must become builders
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 07:21
in Health & Medicine
For scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Monterotondo, Italy, what seemed like a disappointing result turned out to be an important discovery. Their findings, published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provide conclusive proof that, when a muscle is injured, white blood cells called macrophages play a crucial role in its regeneration. The scientists also uncovered the genetic switch that controls this process, a finding that opens the door for new therapeutic approaches not only to sports injuries but also to diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy.