Schwann cell Miz without POZ: degeneration meets regeneration.

Abstract

Peripheral motor and sensory neuropathies are diseases with different etiologies emerging from genetic disorders, diabetes, infection or inflammation, paraneoplastic damage or intoxications including alcohol abuse (Martyn and Hughes, 1997). Hereditary neuropathies, most of which are subsumed under the hypernym Charcot-Marie Tooth (CMT) disease, are clinically heterogeneous: about 50 affected gene loci encoding about 30 genes have been so far identified to be involved in the pathogenesis of different CMTs (Niemann et al., 2006). Depending on structural and electrophysiological features CMTs are divided into axonal and demyelinating forms. Peripheral myelin protein 22 (PMP22), myelin protein zero (MPZ) and connexin 32 (GJB1) are the most frequently affected genes in human demyelinating neuropathies and a variety of animal models have been designed to mimic these human disorders (Bouhy and Timmerman, 2013). These models rely on the deletion, overexpression or mutation of the gene relevant for a human neuropathy and usually clinical symptoms occur early in life and the course of disease is progressive. Recently, Sanz-Moreno et al. (2014) published the partial deletion of the transcription factor Myc interacting zinc finger protein 1 (Miz1) in Schwann cells of mice and observed a late onset demyelinating neuropathy with a spontaneous clinical remission, introducing a unique new model to study peripheral nerve regeneration.