Removal of superfluous chromosome will not cure Down syndrome
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Removing an extra chromosome will not cure Down's syndrome, but it can help medical scientists in further research.
Representatives of Washington University successfully removed the third copy of the 21st chromosome from the cell line of a man with Down syndrome.
The cause of Down's syndrome is chromosomal pathology: in the chromosome set (karyotype) of a person in the 21st pair instead of two three chromosomes (trisomy). Trisomy is also the cause of several other syndromes, in particular Edwards syndrome and Patau's syndrome.
A team of scientists from the medical faculty of the University of Washington managed to extract an extra 21 chromosome from the chromosome set of human cells grown in the laboratory.
According to scientists, the correction of trisomy can have both clinical and scientific significance.
Down Syndrome is the most common trisomy. People with this pathology have characteristic eyes, faces and hands. This syndrome can cause many health problems (intellectual disability, dementia, heart defects, premature aging, some forms of leukemia).
"We are not trying to say that the method we used to eliminate trisomy can help to cure Down's syndrome," explains Dr David Russell, lead author of the study, "We are looking for ways to create cellular therapy by medical scientists to correct some of the hematopoietic disorders that accompany Down syndrome" .
David Russell hopes that his research will bring the day when with the help of cell therapy it will be possible to treat leukemia in people with Down's syndrome. In addition, according to him, further research in this direction can help understand the mechanism of the relationship between an extra copy of the chromosome in the 21st pair and medical problems characteristic of Down's syndrome.
Russell explained that it took a lot of energy to determine the exact method for removing an extra chromosome, but his colleague Dr. Lee Lee Bee, as a result of hard work, managed to correct a number of errors that were made during the first attempt to extract the chromosome from the chromosome set.
Scientists used an adeno-linked virus to deliver a foreign gene to the desired site on the 21st chromosome. To avoid death under the influence of this gene, the cell had to get rid of it along with an extra copy of the chromosome.
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