Reading the hidden signals of the brain with the new technology of an Iranian researcher – Mehr news agency RCO News Agency

According to Mehr news agency, quoted from InterestingEngineeringAbility to monitor activity Genes In the brain, it has been significantly improved with the development of a new technology. Rice University bioengineering researchers, with the participation of Shirin Nourain Iranian researchers have designed a new system of serum markers that can be cleared in the bloodstream and can reveal very subtle changes in brain activity that could not be detected before.

Tracking how it turns off and on Genes In the brain, it is vital to study neurological disorders, but conventional tools are either invasive or unable to record small and rapid changes.

One of the promising options in this field is engineered serum markers; Small proteins that enter the bloodstream after targeting brain cells and can be measured with a simple blood test. These molecules, called “Released Activity Markers” (RMA), although very sensitive, usually last for a few hours. blood They remain and that’s it order It hides short-term changes.

Rice University has now engineered an erasable version of these markers. In this method, a specific enzyme can selectively degrade RMAs in the blood and restore the signal to its original state; An action that allows accurate re-recording of genetic activity.

According to one of the authors of the research, “The main innovation in this work is a fresh look at serum markers. Now we can use these pointers based on We need to correct, clean or strengthen the blood flow. According to him, this idea provides the ability to extend the half-life of the indicator, improve time accuracy and eliminate background signals.

In animal experiments, a single enzyme injection was able to remove about 90% of the background RMA signal within 30 minutes; A procedure that revealed changes in gene expression that were not visible before. The researchers showed that this cleaning process and Re-register can be repeated to obtain a dynamic picture of brain gene activity over time.

sweet Nourain, graduate Rice University and the first author of the study, explains: “We separate the part that produces the signal from the part that causes the long-lasting persistence of the molecule in blood We could have separated. The result was that the background signal disappeared in just a few minutes. “Using these new markers, we were able to record the dynamic changes in gene expression much more clearly.”