Scientists have determined a gene signature that is linked to the severity of spinal cord injury in animals and humans, according to a study. The discovery of key genes that are switched on or off in response to spinal cord injury could inform the development of biomarkers that predict recovery and possibly pinpoint new targets for treatment. The team first reviewed past experiments to find genes associated with the response to spinal cord injury, searching through more than 500 studies, and found 151 human genes were linked in more than one study. Further analysis showed that the genes are biologically and functionally related, coding for groups of protein molecules that physically interact with one another. The researchers’ team constructed a network of genes from healthy human spinal cords and integrated this data with those determined from the experimental studies. They found that two groups of genes (M3 and M7) included a high number of the genes that had been previously pinpointed in experiments as important in the response to spinal cord injury. The findings have been published in the open access journal eLife.

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