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Testicles and transplants Cells from the testes could help the brains of stroke patients recover Transplanting cells from the testes to the brain might one day help patients recover from stroke, say researchers in the US. Sertoli cells isolated from the testes release growth factors that could protect certain types of neurons in the hours following a stroke, reports Cesar Borlongan from the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore. The growth factors seem to specifically prevent dopamine-producing neurons from dying, says Borlongan. Last year his group showed that Sertoli cells could protect dopamine-producing cells in animals with Parkinson's disease. Now they believe that Sertoli cell transplants could one day help the five per cent of stroke patients whose damage is limited to the basal ganglia, a region rich in dopamine cells. Sertoli cells are also ignored by the immune system in the same way that sperm are not attacked. This means these cells should be a safe and effective way to limit the damage in these patients, Borlongan says. Because patients can tolerate a transplant of other people's Sertoli cells, women could receive transplants too. Chain reaction During a stroke, the loss of the blood supply rapidly kills a core group of cells. But in the hours afterwards, the damage becomes worse as dead cells in the core trigger neighbouring cells to commit suicide. Borlongan mimicked the conditions of a stroke using rat cells in a culture dish Experiments showed that Sertoli cells protected dopamine-producing cells, reducing the number of neurons that committed suicide. Borlongan's colleague Paul Sandberg from the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa has now just completed the first tests in rats. By injecting Sertoli cells into the penumbra region of rat brains within a day of a stroke, the rats suffered less severe motor deficits. This suggests that many of the vulnerable cells were saved. Borlongan knocked out various growth factors produced by Sertoli cells and found that the most likely protective substance is a peptide called glial-derived neurotrophic factor, or GDNF. The advantage of using Sertoli cells to deliver GDNF is that they can keep up production for long periods of time. Correspondence about this story should be directed to [log in to unmask] 1157 GMT, 8 November 2000 Helen Phillips, New Orleans http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999146 http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999146