Could symptoms of Down's be reversed?

• Autores: Andy Coghlan
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2926, 2013, pág. 12
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Hopes that symptoms of Down's syndrome could be reversed have been raised by the silencing of the extra chromosome that causes the condition. Jeanne Lawrence at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester took skin cells from men with the condition and "rewound" them into an embryonic state. People with Down's have an extra copy of chromosome 21, altering the way they develop. Into this extra chromosome, her team inserted a copy of a gene called XIST. This gene has a silencing function and is normally found on the X chromosome, where it is needed to suppress one of the two X chromosomes in females.