A nanotechnology approach to augment nerve regeneration

From an article at nanowerk.com:

Microtubules are architectural struts in nerves. They have dynamic parts that constantly assemble and disassemble, but also stable parts that remain assembled. In recent years, researchers working in neurobiology have been intrigued by the idea of microtubule-stabilizing drugs as a therapy to augment nerve regeneration.

“Previous authors proposed that damaged nerves could be made to regenerate by using drugs that make the microtubules in the nerve more stable,” Peter Baas, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy at Drexel University College of Medicine, tells Nanowerk. “In our recent work, we show that a better idea is to increase the amount of the dynamic parts of the microtubules. We do this by reducing the levels of fidgetin, a protein that normally exists in nerves to keep the dynamic parts of microtubules from elongating too much.”

As Baas and his collaborators report in Scientific Reports (“Nanoparticle Delivery of Fidgetin siRNA as a Microtubule-based Therapy to Augment Nerve Regeneration”), to reduce fidgetin levels, they use a nanotechnology approach.