Originally published on The Nano Newswire
Chemical engineers at UC Santa Barbara have developed a new technique of nanoscopic imaging to study myelin sheaths, the membrane substance that coats nerves inside the brain and spinal chord. This development could lead to new methods of detection and diagnosis for multiple sclerosis (MS) and other diseases.
Myelin sheaths act as transmission lines, enabling electrical signals to communicate. The "[m]yelin membranes are a class of biological membranes that are only two molecules thick, less than one millionth of a millimeter," said Jacob Israelachveli, one of the chemical engineers involved. MS, a demyelinating disease, is characterized by lesions that appear in the myelin resulting in the disintegration of the myelin sheath. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, about 400,000 Americans and 2.5 million people worldwide suffer from MS.
The researchers utilized fluorescent imaging at the nanoscopic level to study domains – clusters of lipid molecules that make up myelin membranes. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reports that researchers noted differences in the appearance, size, and sensitivity to pressures between healthy and diseased clusters of lipid molecules. As explained by Israelachveli "[t]he discovery and characterization of micron-sized domains that are different in healthy and diseased lipid assemblies have important implications for the way these membranes interact with each other. And this leads to new understanding of demyelination at the molecular level."
These findings will help pave the way for new methods of detection, diagnosis, and possible treatment of MS.
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