Project description:Transcriptomic analysis of rats with intracerebroventricular administration of 192Ig-saporin in the ventral and dorsal parts of the hippocampus
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:Gene expression analysis of motor cortex after spinal C3 lesion Dorsal column wire knife lesions: Adult female Fischer 344 rats weighing 150-200 gm were used. Animals underwent a laminectomy at spinal level C3. Dorsal funiculus lesions were made in the middle of C3 using a Kopf microwire device (Kopf Instruments, Tujunga, CA). After fixation in a spinal stereotaxic unit, a small dural incision was made. The wire knife was lowered into the spinal cord to a depth of 1.1 mm ventral to the dorsal cord surface and 1.1 mm to the left of the midline. The tip of the wireknife was extruded, forming a 2.25 mm-wide arc that was raised to the dorsal surface of the cord. To ensure complete axotomy of the dorsal funiculus, spinal tissue was compressed against the microwire knife surface using a microaspiration pipette until all visible white matter was transected. Cortical microdissection: The forelimb and hindlimb motor cortex were microdisected from rat cortices: Rostral to Bregma: an area from 2.0 to 4.5 mm mediolateral and from 0 to 2 mm anterior-posterior Caudal to Bregma: an area from 2.0 to 3.5 mediolateral and from 0 to 3 mm caudal to Bregma. Only the inferior half of the cortex containing layer V corticospinal motor neurons was sampled in each region.