本期一篇文章报告了研究人员发展出的一种用来在人身上寻找和跟踪神经干细胞和神经前体细胞(NPCs)的无创伤方法。因为成年哺乳动物继续产生新的神经前体细胞，所以检测它们是研究治疗被神经疾病或创伤损坏的神经组织的重要的第一步。这个方法也可能用于诊断与治疗心理障碍。Louis N. Manganas和文章共同作者首先找到了一个生物标志物(一个识别具体细胞类型的分子)，这使他们能够在活人的大脑中检测神经前体细胞的数量。
他们用质子磁共振谱仪找到主要出现于神经前体细胞中的一个独特谱，鉴定出这个代谢生物标志物。然后他们发展了一个信号处理方法，来检测这个生物标志物的特征谱，并且在成年人的海马体中找到了该标记物，从而找到了神经前体细胞。海马体是生成神经前体细胞的已知区域之一，在记忆形成中起重要的作用。该区域也是阿尔茨海默氏症以及病毒性脑炎导致的缺氧和发炎首先破坏的区域。这一发现有益于干细胞、神经学和精神病学的研究，而且将使正常人体生理与疾病病理过程中的神经元发育研究工作成为可能。（科学时报）
原始出处:
Science 9 November 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5852, pp. 980 - 985
DOI: 10.1126/science.1147851
Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Identifies Neural Progenitor Cells in the Live Human Brain
Louis N. Manganas,1,3 Xueying Zhang,1 Yao Li,1 Raphael D. Hazel,1,2 S. David Smith,2 Mark E. Wagshul,1 Fritz Henn,2 Helene Benveniste,1,2 Petar M. Djuri,1 Grigori Enikolopov,3* Mirjana Maleti-Savati1,3*
The identification of neural stem and progenitor cells (NPCs) by in vivo brain imaging could have important implications for diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic purposes. We describe a metabolic biomarker for the detection and quantification of NPCs in the human brain in vivo. We used proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to identify and characterize a biomarker in which NPCs are enriched and demonstrated its use as a reference for monitoring neurogenesis. To detect low concentrations of NPCs in vivo, we developed a signal processing method that enabled the use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy for the analysis of the NPC biomarker in both the rodent brain and the hippocampus of live humans. Our findings thus open the possibility of investigating the role of NPCs and neurogenesis in a wide variety of human brain disorders.
1 SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
2 Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11719, USA.
3 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: enikolop@cshl.edu (G.E.); mmaleticsava@notes.cc.sunysb.edu (M.M.-S.).
