New Spinal Cord Map Charts Gene Mysteries

Author: Allie Montgomery

Today, they have created a new online atlas that links genes to spinal cord functions that should point researchers toward new treatments for maladies that affect millions of people. Software billionaire Paul Allen backed the first pages of the new Allen Spinal Cord Atlas. They were made available on the internet for the official unveiling. These pages will eventually be a free online resource that will offer 30 trillion bytes of data that document how a mouse's full set of 20,000 genes affect the development of the spinal cord.

The chief scientific officer at the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Brain Science said, "The Allen Spinal Cord Atlas offers profound potential for researchers to unlock the mysteries of the spinal cord and how it is altered during disease or injury."

Jane Roskams, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia's Brain Research Center and a member of the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries or ICORD, said that even before the unveiling at the Washington news briefing, spinal cord specialists were going through data from the first 2,000 genes. She also stated as people start clicking on this chart, inroads will me made and it would open up the black box for the specialists.

It is said that humans and mice share approximately 90 percent of their genetic code, so the atlas will be serving as a model to study the mechanisms behind diseases that are degenerative such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis. Approximately 2.5 million people around the world suffer from multiple sclerosis, and nearly 30,000 Americans suffer from ALS.

Jones also pointed out that this atlas could also point to new gene-based methods for promoting regeneration for spinal cords that have been injured. According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center, approximately 12,000 Americans suffer from spinal cord injuries annually.

The atlas of the spinal cord is set up much like the earlier atlas of the mouse brain created by Allen Institute. The atlas will pinpoint which genes are expressed or turned on in the various types of the neural cells along the length of the spine.

The spinal cord of a mouse contains the full complement of 20,000 genes in each cell, but not every gene is active in each cell. The pattern in which the genes are activated is known as gene expression, which controls precisely how each cell performs its function. In order to document how those genes are expressed, the researchers slicked up the spinal cords for mice that were 4 to 56 days old. These slices were them mounted on microscope slides and were then digitally read by using a robotic imagining system. Approximately 25,000 slides containing 32 slices of spinal tissue on every slide are being digitized. Both adult and juvenile tissues are being run and as the first data is coming out, there are already differences being seen.

With the information being collected, the researchers will be able to compare the activated gene patterns at the different stages of development and be able to track how the genes should be turned on and off in normal cells. This will provide the baseline for seeing how these genes act differently in spines with diseases.

Roskams compared the patterns of the gene expressions to computer programs. The scientists would love o find out the genetic program for establishing the connections in the spinal cord so that hey can try running that program on a patient after they have suffered from an injury. They would also like to know how disease that is genetic and degenerative runs its course so that we can try to disrupt the process to keep the particular disease from getting worse, but in order to do that you would have to have the programs and what this information gives us is the programs.

Chief Operating Officer for this project, Elaine Jones, said that The Allen Institute used a very unorthodox method to fund this $2.3 million project on the spinal cord, which is due to be completed in 2009. She stated that the institute took on this project at the urging of the scientists that are involved in research on the spinal cord, and then turned to a wide range of private and public entities for their support.

Some of the contributors were Wyeth Research, the ALS Association, the PVA Research Foundation, the International Spinal Research Trust, PEMCO Insurance, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and many other anonymous donors. All of the contributors together gave approximately $600,000, and the institute founder Paul Allen made up the difference in the funding. There was no government money used to fund this project. She said that the institute was already sharing the lessons they had learned with other institutions that were looking for new ways to support their research.