AI Article Synopsis
- After spinal cord injury (SCI), scar tissue formation hinders nerve repair, and current treatments mainly focus on glial scars while neglecting fibrous scarring.
- This study investigates how astrocyte-derived small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) can impact fibrous scarring by inhibiting pericyte proliferation and migration, with a particular emphasis on their role around the injury site.
- Results show that these sEVs not only help reduce fibrosis but also promote tissue repair and improve limb function in rats, suggesting a new avenue for SCI treatment.
Article Abstract
After spinal cord injury (SCI), there are complex pathological states in which the formation of scar tissues is a great obstacle to nerve repair. There are currently many potential treatments that can help to reduce the formation of glial scars. However, little attention has been paid to fibrous scarring. Astrocytes have neuroprotective effects on the central nervous system. Similar to other cells, they release small extracellular vesicles (sEVs). Astrocytes, pericytes, endothelial cells, and the basement membrane constitute the blood-spinal cord barrier. It can be seen that astrocytes are structurally closely related to pericytes that form fibrous scars. In this study, astrocyte-derived sEVs were injected into rats with SCI to observe the formation of fibrosis at the site of spinal cord injury. We found that astrocyte-derived sEVs can be ingested by pericytes in vitro and inhibit the proliferation and migration of pericytes. In vivo, astrocyte-derived sEVs could converge around the injury, promote tissue repair, and reduce fibrosis formation, thus promoting the recovery of limb function and improving walking ability. In conclusion, sEVs derived from astrocytes can reduce fibrosis and improve functional recovery after SCI, which provides a new possibility for the study of SCI.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intimp.2022.109322 | DOI Listing |
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Article Synopsis
- After spinal cord injury (SCI), scar tissue formation hinders nerve repair, and current treatments mainly focus on glial scars while neglecting fibrous scarring.
- This study investigates how astrocyte-derived small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) can impact fibrous scarring by inhibiting pericyte proliferation and migration, with a particular emphasis on their role around the injury site.
- Results show that these sEVs not only help reduce fibrosis but also promote tissue repair and improve limb function in rats, suggesting a new avenue for SCI treatment.
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Astrocytes are major contributors of motor neuron (MN) degeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We investigated whether regional and cell maturation differences influence ALS astrocyte malfunction. Spinal and cortical astrocytes from SOD1G93A (mSOD1) 7-day-old mice were cultured for 5 and 13 days in vitro (DIV).
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