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Does a molecule called Nurr1 help protect nerves?

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Lead researcher:
Dr Jonathan Pansieri
Based at:
University of Oxford
MS Society funding:
£248,985
Status:
Approved

About the project

In MS, the immune system mistakenly attacks the protective myelin coating around nerves, causing inflammation. If your MS is progressing, it means some of your nerves are dying. We think the build-up of disability in progressive MS is caused by damage directly to the nerves themselves. But we don’t yet know exactly what causes nerves to die.

The project aims to find out if a molecule called Nurr1 can help us better understand why nerve loss happens and what we can do to protect nerves.

Nurr1 affects the activity of chemical messengers in the brain. These messengers in turn influence what specific immune cells do. In animals, when there is not enough Nurr1, those immune cells are more likely to cause damaging inflammation. And in brain tissue from people who had progressive MS, higher levels of Nurr1 are associated with less nerve loss. So the researchers think Nurr1 might have a protective effect on nerve cells.

To learn more, they’re going to look at brain tissue donated from people with progressive MS and people without MS. And they’ll also look at cells grown in a dish.

The researchers want to know what the role of Nurr1 is in relation to nerve loss and inflammation. They’ll be looking at how it affects the build up of protein clumps called amyloid which we know cause nerve loss in diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease, and the release of chemicals linked to damaging inflammation. Both of these are related to ageing, which research also tells us can be linked to MS progression.

How will it help people with MS?

This project will help us understand more about what causes nerve loss in progressive MS, so we can develop treatments to stop it.

Depending on the results of the study, Nurr1 itself could even one day be tested as a potential treatment.