How a tiny tropical fish could hold the cure to motor neurone disease

By Cher Thornhill

A tiny tropical fish could provide the key to curing motor neurone disease and some forms of paralysis, scientists believe.

Scottish researchers have found that zebrafish are capable of producing new motor neurones – the cells that control muscle movements like walking – when repairing damage to their spinal cord.  

The team believes the discovery could lead to a drug for the nerve illness that has crippled Professor Stephen Hawking and help people paralysed by spinal damage, like Superman star Christopher Reeve.

Famous sufferers: Professor Stephen Hawking (L) has battled motor neurone disease for more than 40 years. Superman star Christopher Reeve (R) was paralysed from the neck down and died from complications in 2004

Motor neurone disease is a rapidly progressive, fatal disease affecting about seven per 100,000 people in the UK. As the motor neurones gradually die, they are not replaced and the patients’ muscles stop working.

Patients are left unable to walk, talk or feed themselves, but the intellect and the senses usually remain intact.

The team, from the Edinburgh University’s Centre for Neuroregeneration, are now screening small molecules in zebrafish in the hope of finding those that kick-start the process of motor neurone regeneration.

They hope their findings will then be translated into drugs and treatments for humans.  

Stephen Hawking, 67, who is confined to a wheelchair, is the world’s best known sufferer of the most common form of motor neurone fisease – amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

He is an exceptional case, having survived for more than 40 years. Doctors feared for his life earlier this month after he was admitted to hospital with a respiratory complaint brought on by the condition.

Christopher Reeve was paralysed after breaking his neck when he was thrown from a horse in May 1995. He died from complications in 2004 after nine years in a wheelchair.   

Edinburgh University scientist Dr Catherina Becker said: ‘Understanding how  zebrafish can regenerate large numbers of motor neurones after damage to the 

spinal cord and how these motor neurones are produced by natural stem cells  could help in finding treatments for motor neurone disease.  

‘This could take the form of improving methods of generating motor neurones in  the laboratory that could be transplanted or finding drugs which could help  patients renew their motor neurone supply.’

The tiny transparent Zebrafish – which grow to little more than an inch long  in adulthood and are a tropical fishtank favourite in many dentists’ waiting rooms – produce new motor neurones from so-called ‘progenitor cells’ in their spinal cords.

These are then able to turn into certain other types of cells when needed by the fish. 

As well as looking at stimulating the production of motor neurones, the  Edinburgh scientists are working on ways to ensure the cells function properly.

Healthy motor neurons transmit messages from the brain to the spine and then on to the muscles.