Developmental tracks to allow and promote spontaneous remyelination in Multiple Sclerosis Event

Speaker: Fernando de Castro Soubriet (M.D., Ph.D.)

Hospital Nacional de Parapléjicos, Toledo, Spain.

One of the most relevant population of precursor cells with repair potential in the adult CNS are oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) and represent between 3 and 8% of the total cells of the adult brain in humans. These OPCs replace dead oligodendrocytes in both the healthy and ill mature CNS: spontaneous demyelination is a n important event in demyelinating pathologies which can even effectively remyielinate lesions and give rise to shadow plaques. Although they retain certain abilities resembling embryonic and early postnatal OPCs, an increasing bulk of differences starts to accumulate in literature. Then, the detailed study of the cell biology and physiology of these adult OPCs opens a promising future for new pharmacological and cellular therapies to potentate endogenous remyelination to efficiently repair tissue damage in demyelinating diseases like MS. Our group works in the cell biology and physiology of OPCs, both during development and myelination and in the adult, including demyelinating scenarios and MS. One very characteristic research line relies in the study of OPCs isolated from adult human brain samples as a touch stone for the pathways discovered in non-human cells. Our most fruitful research has been performed on the effects of FGF-2, anosmin-1 and the blockade of phosphodiesterase-7 enzymatic activity in OPCs and I will summarize these different effects comparing them in embryonic/mature and physiological/pathological scenarios.