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:Among the vertebrates, teleost and urodele amphibians are capable of regenerating their central nervous system. We have used crush injury method on zebrafish spinal cord, which is a common mammalian mode of injury in spinal cord. To identify the molecular mechanisms of the underlying cellular events during regeneration of zebrafish spinal cord, we have employed high density oligonucleotide microarrays and profiled the temporal transcriptome dynamics during the entire phenomenon. A total of 3842 genes expressed differentially with significant fold changes during spinal cord regeneration. Cluster analysis revealed event specific dynamic expression of genes related to inflammation, cell death, cell migration, cell proliferation, neurogenesis, neural patterning and axonal regrowth. We have also validated the expression pattern of 14 genes (which include inflammatory regulators, cell cycle regulators, pattern forming genes and signaling molecules) by different methodologies. Spatio-temporal analysis of STAT3 expression suggested its possible function in controlling inflammation and cell proliferation. Genes involved in the proliferating neural progenitors and their dorso-ventral patterning (sox2 and dbx2) are differentially expressed. Injury induced cell proliferation is controlled by many cell cycle regulators and some of them also show their common expression in other regenerating systems like fin, heart and retina. We also reported unusual expression pattern of certain pathway genes like one carbon folate metabolism and N-glycan biosynthesis which have not been reported during regeneration of spinal cord. Genes like stat3, socs3, atf3, mmp9 and sox11, which are known to control peripheral nervous system (PNS) regeneration in mammals, are also upregulated in zebrafish spinal cord injury (SCI) thus creating PNS like environment after injury. Our study provides a comprehensive genetic blue print of diverse cellular response(s) during regeneration of zebrafish spinal cord that could be used to induce successful regeneration in mammals. The spinal cord has been injured by crushing dorso-ventrally for 1 sec with a number 5 Dumont forceps at the level of 15th/16th vertebrae. Later the wound were sealed by placing a suture. Both spinal cord injured and sham operated fish were allowed to regenerate and the progress of regeneration was observed after 1, 3, 7, 10 and 15 days of injury. Zebrafishes were anesthetized deeply for 5 minutes in 0.1% tricaine (MS222; Sigma, USA) and approximately 1mm length of spinal cord both rostrally and caudally from injury epicenter were dissected out from 50-60 fishes in each batch and pooled for RNA extraction.
Project description:To identify regulatory tissue regeneration enhancer elements (TREEs) relevant during spinal cord regeneration, we performed ATAC sequencing datasets of zebrafish spinal cord at 1 week after sham injury and after transection.
Project description:To identify regulatory tissue regeneration enhancer elements (TREEs) relevant during spinal cord regeneration, we performed ATAC sequencing datasets of zebrafish spinal cord at 2 weeks after sham injury and after transection.