Solid tissues in the body possess a range of stiffness and provide cells with an instructive microenvironment. Scaffolds in tissue engineering should be rationally designed to become an adhesion substrate friendly to cells. Schwann cells are the principal glial cell in the peripheral nervous system and used as support cells for generating tissue-engineered nerve grafts. Although an important mechanical cue, substrate stiffness, has been documented to make significant effects on many types of cells cultured on the substrate, such a study for Schwann cells is still lacking. In this study, we investigated cell adhesion, survival, proliferation, migration, cytoskeleton, and neurotrophic actions of Schwann cells cultured on polyacrylamide gel substrates with different stiffness, and determined an optimal elastic modulus value for these substrates. Our data not only highlight the importance of substrate stiffness in the crosstalk between Schwann cells and surrounding microenvironment, but also introduce a new parameter, in addition to biocompatibility, biodegradability, and neuroaffinity, for designing scaffolds in nerve tissue engineering.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2012.06.006 | DOI Listing |
J Neurosci
January 2025
Department of Developmental Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, 63110, USA.
Neurodegenerative diseases of both the central and peripheral nervous system are characterized by selective neuronal vulnerability, i.e., pathology that affects particular types of neurons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Neurobiol
January 2025
Department of Urology, Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Qingdao University, No. 20 East Yuhuangding Road, Yantai, 264000, Shandong, China.
Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) currently lacks effective treatment options, and the restoration of neurological function remains a major challenge, with unmet clinical needs. Research has indicated that adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) can be induced to differentiate into neural-induced adipose-derived stem cells (NI-ADSCs) under specific inductive conditions, exhibiting excellent neuroregenerative capabilities. ADSCs were obtained from female SD rats and induced into NI-ADSCs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Cell Mol Med
February 2025
Department of Neurobiology, Key Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology of the Ministry of Education, Naval Medical University, Shanghai, China.
Myelin is the key structure for high-speed information transmission and is formed by oligodendrocytes (OLs) which are differentiated from oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) in the central nervous system. Lipid is the main component of myelin and the role of lipid metabolism-related molecules in myelination attach increasing attention. Lysophosphatidylcholine acyltransferase 1 (LPCAT1) mediates the conversion of lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) to phosphatidylcholine (PC), and its role in myelination draws our interest as LPC is a classical demyelination inducer and PC is a major component of myelin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIBRO Neurosci Rep
June 2025
Orthopaedic Center, Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University of Engineering, No.81 Congtai Road, Congtai District, Handan City, Hebei Province 56004, China.
The peripheral nervous system is a complex ecological network, and its injury triggers a series of fine-grained intercellular regulations that play a crucial role in the repair process. The peripheral nervous system is a sophisticated ecological network, and its injury initiates a cascade of intricate intercellular regulatory processes that are instrumental in the repair process. Despite the advent of sophisticated microsurgical techniques, the repair of peripheral nerve injuries frequently proves inadequate, resulting in adverse effects on patients' quality of life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Immunol
January 2025
Neuroimmunology Research Group, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Introduction: Remyelination of demyelinated axons can occur as an endogenous repair mechanism in multiple sclerosis (MS), but its efficacy varies between both MS individuals and lesions. The molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive remyelination remain poorly understood. Here, we studied the relation between microglia activation and remyelination activity in MS.
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