Regeneration of the muscle requires complex coordination between several different processes. The key player in muscle repair is the muscle stem cells, which divide and produce new muscle cells to fix the muscle damage. A crucial regulator of muscle function and repair is a ‘signaling molecule’ called calcineurin.

Calcineurin accomplishes its effect on muscle by inhibiting another protein called FoxO, which is a protein that plays a crucial role in skeletal muscle atrophy through the induction of genes involved in cell cycle repression and protein degradation. Suppressing the effects of FoxO, calcineurin ensures that proliferating cells stay alive and keep dividing to produce enough cells to repair muscle damage.

Researcher Nadia Rosenthal, head of European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s Mouse Biology Unit, and her team found a naturally occurring version of calcineurin, called CnAB1. CnAB1 has the unique property of RNA splicing. When the gene has been copied from DNA into RNA, certain pieces of information are cut out of the RNA molecule and does not make part of the protein, which is why CnAB1 lacks a regulatory site that normally represses its activity.

CnAB1 is permanently active and disconnects the protein’s activity from the normal injury signals. Free of regulation, CnAB1 is flexible in its reaction to muscle injury. Permanently active CnAB1 is expressed only in proliferating stem cells and regenerating muscles, suggesting something like an emergency response team that is called only in response to muscle damage.

Degenerative disc disease is a normal part of aging and occurs when our intervertebral discs lose their flexibility and the gel in between them thins, causing neck pain and other symptoms like numbness and tingling in the shoulders and arms. Cervical disc degeneration can also contribute to spinal stenosis and other progressive conditions, as well as more sudden disc herniation.

The newly approved Prestige Cervical Disc can replace the impaired natural disc. After the surgeon removes the impaired disc, the artificial disc is attached to the adjacent vertebrae with bone screws. This new procedure can reduce pain and provide greater motion over the traditional approach.

The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida has just announced that they are using the new artificial disc. They estimate that 30-40% of cervical spine surgeries that would have previously required fusion can now be done with the artificial disc.

Implanting the artificial disc usually takes about 90 minutes and normally requires the patient to spend just one night in the hospital. Patients who have had the surgery returned to work earlier and reported less pain than those patients who underwent fusion.

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