To regenerate after injury, a nerve cell must turn on gene programs that have been silenced since development. Epigenetic modifications, important players in the activation and silencing of genes, may underlie the ability for a cell to rebuild. “At some level, some epigenetic change must occur globally to allow the neuron to reprogram itself,” says Valeria Cavalli of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.
“The strength [of this work] is the mechanistic understanding” of how peripheral neurons repair themselves, says Hongyan Zou of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City who was not involved in the research. “Can we harness this mechanism in the central nerves?” she asks.
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