Properties of human pericytes (including student study) Version 2
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Properties of human pericytes (including student study)
IRAS ID
180727
Contact name
David Attwell
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
In rats and mice, contractile cells on small blood vessels (capillaries) have been shown by the Attwell lab at UCL to regulate brain blood flow both normally and in pathology. Based on this research it is likely that, after stroke in humans, constriction and subsequent death of pericytes increases neuronal death, increasing mental and physical impairment.
We will use live samples of human brain tissue, which are removed during neurosurgical operations and would otherwise be discarded, to determine whether human pericytes regulate capillary diameter in the same way as rodent pericytes do. These experiments, combined with other rodent work that we are doing, may open the way to new therapeutic approaches in stroke. For example, we have already found a clinically used drug which reduces pericyte constriction and death in stroke-like conditions in rodents. We would like to know if it does the same for human pericytes. The work is also relevant to other diseases where the blood flow is restricted, such as spinal cord injury and Alzheimer's disease.
In order to study human pericytes we will take advantage of the fact that some patients, for example with brain cancer or untreatable epilepsy, have neurosurgical operations to remove the diseased tissue. Often, to access the diseased tissue, the surgeon needs to remove more superficial normal tissue. This normal tissue is then discarded. We will take this discarded tissue when it is removed during the operation at Queen Square, transport it to the Attwell lab in UCL suspended in a form of imitation blood, and then cut it into thin slices which will be imaged under a microscope while neurotransmitters are applied to it. In this way we will determine how human pericytes function to regulate brain blood flow.
REC name
North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/NW/0568
Date of REC Opinion
6 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion