So, the humble and ubiquitous fibroblast whose normal role is to manufacture the material of the body structure – collagen proteins – may be persuaded to turn into a functioning nerve cell or neuron – and not with stem cell technology but instead with three transcription genes!

The advance article published online in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, 27 January 2010, doi: 10.1038/nature08797 – Direct conversion of fibroblasts to functional neurons by defined factors – Vierbuchen, T. and colleagues highlights this work of such tremendous potential. The researchers took embryonic and postnatal mouse fibroblasts and identified a combination of three genes that were capable of inducing these fibroblasts to become functional neurons capable of generating action potentials and forming synapses.

It is known that fibroblasts may be genetically re-programmed to a pluripotent state using a number of genetic transciption factors but it was unknown whether they could be persuaded directly into another defined somatic cell. Vierbuchen et al. have shown that this is feasible by their work on mouse fibroblasts. The implications are huge for the treatment of disease, the regeneration of compromised, traumatised or aged nerves and the therapeutic intervention in development, to name a few.