http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/138/7/1770
This
scientific commentary refers to ‘Multiple therapeutic effects of
progranulin on experimental acute ischaemic stroke’, by Kanazawa et al. (doi:10.1093/brain/awv079).
Stroke
is one of the commonest causes of death, and survivors often suffer
debilitating impairments of speech, memory, movement, swallowing and
other neurological functions. About 80% of strokes are ischaemic, due to
thrombosis or embolism. The resultant loss of oxygen to the affected
tissue depletes cells of energy and initiates a series of biological
events that include the release of toxic levels of glutamate, the
production of free radicals, inflammation, and blood vessel disruption.
The infarct, or the region of cell death at the ischaemic core, is
surrounded by an area of damaged but still living brain tissue known as
the penumbra. The injured but living cells of the penumbra can be
restored to functionality if the infarct is prevented from expanding
into this region by, for example, restoring blood flow through early
administration of the thrombolytic protein tissue plasminogen activator
(tPA). Very few other drugs have proven beneficial in limiting
stroke-related damage in the human brain (Donnan et al., 2008).
The penumbra has been described as a transition zone where processes of
cell death and injury radiate outwards from the infarct to confront
counteracting mechanisms of repair that are mobilized by the brain to
protect the damaged tissue (Lo, 2008). In this issue of Brain,
Kanazawa and colleagues provide important insights into how a secreted
protein, progranulin, protects the brain from further damage after an
ischaemic stroke and suggest that progranulin could be a valuable new
weapon in the development of treatments that will protect the brain from
stroke-related injury (Kanazawa et al. …
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