Pola Roberto, Aprahamian Tamar R, Bosch-Marcé Marta, Curry Cynthia, Gaetani Eleonora, Flex Andrea, Smith Roy C, Isner Jeffrey M, Losordo Douglas W
Department of Medicine (Cardiovascular Research), St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
Neurobiol Aging. 2004 Nov-Dec;25(10):1361-8. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2004.02.028.
The physiologic ability of peripheral nerves to regenerate after injury is impaired with aging. However, the mechanisms responsible for this phenomenon are still incompletely characterized. In this study, we investigated whether aging influences the intraneural angiogenic response that occurs after injury and during regeneration of peripheral nerves. We performed a crush injury of the sciatic nerve in old and senescence accelerated mice and found that the peripheral nerves of these animals are unable to locally upregulate vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a prototypical angiogenic cytokine, after injury and have substantial deficits in mounting an appropriate intraneural angiogenic response during nerve regeneration. Our findings provide new evidence of possible interdependent relationships between aging, VEGF, angiogenesis, and nerve regeneration and suggest that vascular abnormalities might play a role in aging-associated neurological dysfunction, with potentially important fundamental and clinical implications.
周围神经损伤后再生的生理能力会随着年龄增长而受损。然而，导致这一现象的机制仍未完全明确。在本研究中，我们调查了衰老是否会影响周围神经损伤后及再生过程中的神经内血管生成反应。我们对老年和早衰小鼠的坐骨神经进行了挤压损伤，发现这些动物的周围神经在损伤后无法局部上调血管内皮生长因子（VEGF，一种典型的血管生成细胞因子），并且在神经再生过程中产生适当的神经内血管生成反应方面存在显著缺陷。我们的研究结果为衰老、VEGF、血管生成和神经再生之间可能存在的相互依存关系提供了新证据，并表明血管异常可能在与衰老相关的神经功能障碍中起作用，具有潜在的重要基础和临床意义。
