Surprisingly ,Human and zebrafish matched with mato cells of brain !

khatisam4 (54)in #science • 7 years ago

Zebra Fish Data (credit)

The University of Queensland ,Australia, Institute for Molecular Bioscience : A group of scientists have found previously unknown type of cells that clears and manages the waste from the brain. They have stated that their findings on this cell will bring some understanding on the brain;s biology and the diseases of brain such as dementia and Stroke. The researchers gave a view that there is a complete new type of lymphatic cell in the journal of Natural Neuroscience.

A zebrafish which is tiny and cute in nature, most probably smaller as a size of your little finger, are completely helping the scientists to figure out and unlock the mysteries of the brain. This fish have been used pastly since 1970s as a tool for the study of development of vertebrates.Recently, it has helped to learn about many human disease and some potential healthy treatments. This fish has about the 26,000 protein coding genes and most probably, about 70% of those genes are related similar with the genes of human beings.

Zebrafish (credit)

These fish happens to be a transparent but share a plenty of the same cell types and tissues and organs as humans. Due to its transparency, it helped the scientists to state out what was going in its brain with the help of advanced light microscopes - like how does cancer develops ? As the researches and scientists looked up close to this zebrafish brain, they found an exciting new type of cells that removes and cleans the brain. Even , they found out that it protects from the disease such as Stroke and Dementia. So, it acted like a useful model for studying the human brain biology as many of their cells and organs had a similarities with ours.

States our senior author, Ben Hogan who is an associate professor in the Institutes for the Molecular Bio-science at University of Queensland in Australia, "Its very rare to discover such type of cell in the brain which we didn't know in the past and such particular type of cell that we didn't expected there to be right in place. "

These also has brought up some lot of different ideas on other diseases such as melanoma, which happens to be a severe and dangerous type of cancer realated to skin [ (BRAF) V600E] which happens to be found on the zebrafishes with immunosuppresed too !

As it was found on the lymphatic system , I just want to give a brief knowledge about the lymphatic system , as most probably many people don't know about this !

The body's lymphatic system (credit)

The lymphatic system is the main part of the immune system that fights with the foreign body which enters the human body system . It is the connection or say a network of various tissues and organs that get rid with the toxins , wastes and even with the other unwanted materials that enters the body .It consists of following functions :

This has a primary function which transport lymph similar to the blood plasma, which is a fluid containing white blood cells that fights the infection causing agent through out the body.

Lymphatic system (credit)

The lymphatic system consist of lymphatic vessels where lymph flows which is just similar to the circulatory system like vein and arteries or capillaries . This vessels are generally connected with the lymph nodes. The lymph node are the tonsils, spleen, thymus, adenoids where the lymph gets filtered . The lymphatic system return the fluid from the tissue and organ to the blood.During this process , it absorbs the fat-soluble nutrients and some fats from the digestive tracts and carries to the bloodstream.

The main facts about the lymphatic system is that , unlike the blood vessels, it carries the fluid away from the tissue and organs.It even helps in maintaining the blood volume and blood pressure and prevents the occurrence of edema.

Surprisingly, the cardio-vascular system has a pump- it's a heart- it pumps the blood through the capillaries and vessels. And in this body, there is the lymphatic system where the lymph flow occurs by the contraction of the smooth muscle present in the vessel walls together with the contraction of skeletal muscles.

Since a long time had passed, the lymphatic vessels weren't discovered in the brain . Now certain landmarks have been discovered that said to be "well hidden" shows the presence of lymphatic system also in the brain.

Professor Hogan says that "According to the University of Queensland researchers did another surprisingly discovery in finding the brain containing the isolated lymphatic cells that helps to clean up the waste that often leaks from the bloodstream has same cells appearing to be the zebrafish version of cell defined in human called as "Mato cell" or "lipid-laden cells". He even adds some knowledge that these mato cells clears all the fats and the lipids from the system but are not known to be a lymphatic in nature.

Mato cells exists as independent of vessels

Prof. Hogan explains that the lymphatic cells clears the waste and fats leaking to the bloodstream into the surrounding tissues and prevents the damage to the surround tissue. By using the advanced light microscope , the researchers are able to look closely and examine the zebrafishes brain and observe the brain cells and its details on how do they develop and work. Normally these lymphatic cells dedvelops into lymphatic vessels and carry the lymph fluid .

Conclusively, they were surprised in finding the "adult zebrafish brain carrying these cells exists individually and becomes independent of vessels and collecting the wastes entering the brain of zebrafish via bloodstream.

So Prof. Hogan concludes that "We should be focusing and investigating on how these cells functions in the human beings and investigate if they can control them with the prevailing and existing drugs and promote brain health and improve the understanding of the neurological problems and disease such as Dementia and Stroke "