Role of neuregulin-1/ErbB signaling in stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury-induced chronic neuropathic pain. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Chronic neuropathic pain is a common and debilitating consequence of spinal cord injury (SCI). In a rat contusion injury model, we observed that chronic neuropathic pain is present on day 7 after SCI and persists for the entire 56-day observation period. However, currently available pain therapies are inadequate for SCI-induced neuropathic pain. In this study, we show that spinal transplantation of mouse embryonic stem cell-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) enhances remyelination in the injured spinal cord and reduces SCI-induced chronic neuropathic pain. Moreover, we found that SCI reduces the protein level of neuregulin-1 and ErbB4 in the injured spinal cord and that OPC transplantation enhances the spinal expression of both proteins after SCI. Finally, intrathecal injection of neuregulin-1 small interfering RNA, but not the control nontarget RNA, diminishes OPC transplantation-produced remyelination and reverses the antinociceptive effect of OPC transplantation. Our findings suggest that the transplantation of embryonic stem cell-derived OPCs is an appropriate therapeutic intervention for treatment of SCI-induced chronic neuropathic pain, and that neuregulin-1/ErbB signaling plays an important role in central remyelination under pathological conditions and contributes to the alleviation of such pain.

published proceedings

  • Stem Cells

altmetric score

  • 1

author list (cited authors)

  • Tao, F., Li, Q., Liu, S. u., Wu, H., Skinner, J., Hurtado, A., ... Johns, R. A.

citation count

  • 25

complete list of authors

  • Tao, Feng||Li, Qun||Liu, Su||Wu, Haiying||Skinner, John||Hurtado, Andres||Belegu, Visar||Furmanski, Orion||Yang, Ya||McDonald, John W||Johns, Roger A

publication date

  • January 2013