Science is Fun Fridays!
These "zombie genes" are glial cells, which will grow and sprout appendages, but that in itself isn't too surprising. These cells are responsible for clean up after brain injuries such as oxygen deprivation and stroke.
However, not knowing this before may complicate some of the research done using post-mortem brain tissue to find treatments and cures for such diseases as Alzheimer's and schizophrenia, because it has not accounted for the post-mortem cell activity.
-Dr. Jeffrey Loeb, head of neurology and rehabilitation at UIC College of Medicine.
Loeb and his team noticed that the global pattern of gene expression in fresh human brain tissue didn't match any of the published reports of post-mortem gene expression, so they decided to run a simulated death experiment. They took recently collected brain tissues and left them to sit at room temperature to replicate the post-mortem interval. They then analyzed these at time points from 0 to 24 hours.
They found that 80% of the genes remained stable.
A second group of genes, present in neurons known to be involved in memory and thinking, rapidly degraded in the hours after death.
A third group, these zombie genes, increased their activity, peaking at about 12 hours.
"Researchers need to take into account these genetic and cellular changes, and reduce the post-mortem interval as much as possible to reduce the magnitude of these changes. The good news from our findings is that we now know which genes and cell types are stable, which degrade, and which increase over time so that results from post-mortem brain studies can be better understood."
Maybe that's why zombies seek brains...their glial cells just need more live tissue!
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