“This research implies that we might be able to mimic neuronal repair processes that occur naturally in lower animals, which would be very exciting,” says the study’s senior author and Salk professor Kuo-Fen Lee. The results were published in PLOS Biology.
The scientists looked at how two p75 proteins bind together and form a pair that latches onto the inhibitors released from damaged myelin. They also found that the growth-promoting p45 could disrupt the p75 pairing and with less p75 pairs available to bond to inhibitor signals, axons were able to regrow.