Skin cells can produce transgenic molecules that control blood pressure in mice, and possibly the same technology that has a variety of diseases, researchers report.
The main interest shows the therapeutic benefit of this approach,  said Dr. Jonathan Vogel, principal investigator for the Department of Dermatology of the United States --
National Cancer Institute and lead author of the report published online in this week's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Control of blood pressure is designed to test the mouse, because  some of our colleagues on the paper with an interest in hypertension,  said Vogel. The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of Giessen and Marburg in Germany.
The tests showed that blood pressure skin of mice fed a normal diet patches to reduce and prevent hypertension in mice fed a diet rich in salt.
The active molecules across cell biotechnology atrial natriuretic peptide, a hormone that reduces blood pressure.

The criterion is to provide only a first step in what promises to be a long way to use skin grafts in medicine,  said Vogel.
Other issues are (the duration because, as noted by Bird,  was treated fairly short-term studies) and many other conditions, the technique could also be used.
And then it was  a first step in a small animal model,  proved a point,  he added.

This shows that we can engineer skin graft can be transplanted successfully and that the product makes the skin cells, access to the bloodstream, which is not insignificant. This, in concentrations sufficient to exert a biological effect  said Bird.

My job, changes in skin cells to improve the treatment involves,  says Supp. Like birds, they used a retrovirus to modify cells.  What we want to do is to increase the expression of beneficial genes and reduced expression of these pests,  he said.

Treatment of skin graft is close to the medical application after 20 years of effort, explained Supp.  The skin is a model system for gene therapy and that can kill a small implant in an animal is a systemic reaction is very exciting,  he said.