A protein on the surface of certain brain cells can halt production of the myelin sheaths that surround and insulate nerve fibres. The protein, DR6, could be a target of treatments for multiple sclerosis, a disease marked by myelin loss.

Sha Mi at Biogen Idec in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her colleagues discovered that overexpression of DR6 causes the myelin-producing brain cells, called oligodendrocytes, to undergo programmed cell death. Antibodies that block DR6 boosted myelin production in cultured oligodendrocytes, and one antibody even reversed myelin damage in a rat model of multiple sclerosis. The post-mortem brains of three patients with multiple sclerosis contained more DR6-expressing cells than brains of people without the condition.

Nature Med. doi:10.1038/nm.2373 (2011)