ABSTRACT: Proteomic analysis of the spatiotemporal based molecular kinetics of acute spinal cord injury identifies a time- and segment-specific window for effective tissue repair
Project description:The aneurysm clip impact-compression model of spinal cord injury (SCI) in animals mimics the primary mechanism of SCI in human, i.e. acute impact and persisting compression; and its histo-pathological and behavioural outcomes are extensively similar to the human SCI. In order to understand the distinct molecular events underlying this injury model, an analysis of global gene expression of the acute, subacute and chronic stages of a moderate to severe injury to the rat spinal cord was conducted using a microarray gene chip approach. Rat thoracic spinal cord (T7) was injured using aneurysm clip impact-compression injury model and the epicenter area of injured spinal cord was isolated for RNA extraction and processing and hybridization on Affymetrix GeneChip arrays.
Project description:The goal of this study is to elucidate the influence of hemisection injury at thoracic spinal cord (T9) on the transcriptome of the lower lumbar spinal cord at acute phase. mRNA profiles of spinal cord at 4 days-post injury and before injury were generated. 72 Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) were observed. Our study represents the detailed analysis of transcriptomes of spinal cord distal to the hemisected lesion at acute phase, with biologic replicates, generated by RNA-seq technology.
Project description:The goal of this study is to elucidate the influence of hemisection injury at thoracic spinal cord (T9) on the upper transcriptome of the upper lumbar spinal cord at acute phase. mRNA profiles of spinal cord at 4 days-post injury and before injury were generated. 72 Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) were observed. Our study represents the detailed analysis of transcriptomes of spinal cord distal to the hemisected lesion at acute phase, with biologic replicates, generated by RNA-seq technology.
Project description:Peripheral blood -derived nucleated cells from patients with acute spinal cord injury 24h, day 3, day 7 post-injury compared to healthy subjects
Project description:Summary: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a damage to the spinal cord induced by trauma or disease resulting in a loss of mobility or feeling. SCI is characterized by a primary mechanical injury followed by a secondary injury in which several molecular events are altered in the spinal cord often resulting in loss of neuronal function. Analysis of the areas directly (spinal cord) and indirectly (raphe and sensorimotor cortex) affected by injury will help understanding mechanisms of SCI. Hypothesis: Areas of the brain primarily affected by spinal cord injury are the Raphe and the Sensorimotor cortex thus gene expression profiling these two areas might contribute understanding the mechanisms of spinal cord injury. Specific Aim: The project aims at finding significantly altered genes in the Raphe and Sensorimotor cortex following an induced moderate spinal cord injury in T9.
Project description:Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating neurological condition for which there are currently no effective treatment options to restore function. A major obstacle to the development of new therapies is our fragmentary understanding of the coordinated pathophysiological processeses triggered by damage to the human spinal cord. An additional challenge to translation of preclinical therapies is the reliance of clinical trials on standardized neurological assessments to enrol and stratify patients, rather than objective injury biomarkers. Here, we describe a systems biology approach to integrate decades of small-scale experiments with unbiased, genome-wide gene expression from the human spinal cord, revealing a gene regulatory network signature of the pathophysiological response to SCI. Our integrative analyses converge on an evolutionarily conserved gene subnetwork enriched for genes associated with the response to SCI by small-scale experiments, and whose expression is upregulated in a severity-dependent manner following injury and downregulated in functional recovery. We validate the severity-dependent upregulation of this subnetwork in prospective transcriptomic and proteomic studies. Our analysis provides a systems-level view of the coordinated molecular processes activated in response to SCI. Further, our results nominate quantitative biomarkers of injury severity and functional recovery, with the potential to facilitate development and translation of novel therapies.
Project description:We analyzed the changes in the spinal cord transcriptome after a spinal cord contusion injury and MSC or OEC transplantation. The cells were injected immediately or 7 days after the injury. The mRNA of the spinal cord injured segment was extracted and analyzed by microarray at 2 and 7 days after cell grafting. 52 total samples were analyzed in 13 different groups. Each group include 4 samples and each one were analyzed as a biological replica. The intact animals were used as control of injury. The vehicle (VHC) groups were used as control of transplantation procedure. The MSC or OEC graft were injected at the day of injury (acute graft) or seven days after injury (delayed graft). The samples from engrafted animals were obtained at 2 or 7 days after cell transplantation. To determine the effects of MSC or OEC transplantation, the expression value of each engrafted sample were compared with correspondent VHC group.
Project description:Adult zebrafish have the ability to recover from spinal cord injury and exhibit re-growth of descending axons from the brainstem to the spinal cord. We performed gene expression analysis using microarray to find damage-induced genes after spinal cord injury, which shows that Sox11b mRNA is up-regulated at 11 days after injury. However, the functional relevance of Sox11b for regeneration is not known. Here, we report that the up-regulation of Sox11b mRNA after spinal cord injury is mainly localized in ependymal cells lining the central canal and in newly differentiating neuronal precursors or immature neurons. Using an in vivo morpholino-based gene knockout approach, we demonstrate that Sox11b is essential for locomotor recovery after spinal cord injury. In the injured spinal cord, expression of the neural stem cell associated gene, Nestin, and the proneural gene Ascl1a (Mash1a), which are involved in the self-renewal and cell fate specification of endogenous neural stem cells, respectively, is regulated by Sox11b. Our data indicate that Sox11b promotes neuronal determination of endogenous stem cells and regenerative neurogenesis after spinal cord injury in the adult zebrafish. Enhancing Sox11b expression to promote proliferation and neurogenic determination of endogenous neural stem cells after injury may be a promising strategy in restorative therapy after spinal cord injury in mammals. Spinal cord injury or control sham injury was performed on adult zebrafish. After 4, 12, or 264 hrs, a 5 mm segment of spinal cord was dissected and processed (as a pool from 5 animals) in three replicate groups for each time point and treatment.