Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Diagnosis in a dish: your skin can help your brain

Nature Medicine volume 17, pages 1558–1559 (2011)Cite this article

Subjects

The discovery that skin cells from an adult human can be reprogrammed back to their embryonic stage and then differentiated to produce neuron-like cells in culture opens an opportunity to study disease pathogenesis and screen potential therapeutic drugs. A new study provides an example of this approach for the neuropsychiatric disorder Timothy syndrome (pages 1657–1662).

Recent groundbreaking advances in stem cell research have opened new possibilities for the diagnosis and study of the origins of various congenital disorders1. As many neuropsychiatric diseases are thought to arise as a consequence of abnormal embryonic brain development, theoretically it might be possible to analyze defects associated with the disease and their pathogenetic mechanisms in isolated adult neuronal or glial cell cultures using advanced genetic and cell biological methods. However, a major obstacle in the application of this strategy in humans is the requirement for a brain biopsy, which is hampered by numerous practical and ethical issues.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: A basic strategy for generating, analyzing and using iPSCs to study genetic disease.

References

  1. Breunig, J.J., Haydar, T.F. & Rakic, P. Neuron 70, 614–625 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Takahashi, K., Okita, K., Nakagawa, M. & Yamanaka, S. Nat. Protoc. 2, 3081–3089 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Park, I.H. et al. Cell 134, 877–886 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Maherali, N. et al. Cell Stem Cell 1, 55–70 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Brennand, K.J. et al. Nature 473, 221–225 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Apostolou, E. & Hochedlinger, K. Nature 474, 165–166 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Paşca, S.P. et al. Nat. Med. 17, 1657–1662 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Casanova, M.F., El-Baz, A., Vanbogaert, E., Narahari, P. & Switala, A. Brain Pathol. 20, 451–458 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Hardan, A.Y. et al. Psychiatry Res. Neuroimaging 174, 57–61 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Raznahan, A. Cereb. Cortex 20, 1332–1340 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Rakic, P. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 10, 724–735 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Kang, H.J. et al. Nature 478, 483–489 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anita Huttner and Pasko Rakic are at the Department of Neurobiology and Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.,

    Anita Huttner & Pasko Rakic

  2. Anita Huttner is also at the Department of Pathology at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.,

    Anita Huttner

Authors
  1. Anita Huttner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pasko Rakic
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pasko Rakic.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Huttner, A., Rakic, P. Diagnosis in a dish: your skin can help your brain. Nat Med 17, 1558–1559 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2599

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2599

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing