Adeno-associated virus vector expressing nerve growth factor enhances cholinergic axonal sprouting after cortical injury in rats.

Nerve growth factor (NGF) is known to promote both the survival of cholinergic neurons after injury and the regeneration of damaged cholinergic axons. Recent evidence has implicated NGF in the regulation of cholinergic axonal sprouting by intact neurons projecting to the hippocampus of rats, sustaining a lesion of the entorhinal cortex. We explored the possibility that NGF may regulate this lesion-induced cholinergic sprouting by injecting recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vector expressing NGF and green fluorescent protein (GFP) into the dentate gyrus of rats that were subsequently given unilateral entorhinal lesions.