Department of Functional Biology, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Compostela, Spain.
Department of Anatomy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
J Neurotrauma. 2020 Mar 15;37(6):899-903. doi: 10.1089/neu.2019.6604. Epub 2019 Oct 11.
Taurine is one of the most abundant free amino acids in the brain. It is well known that taurine protects the brain from further damage after a traumatic event. However, only a few studies have looked at the possible role of taurine in the regulation of axon regeneration after injury. Here, we aimed to reveal the possible role for taurine in the modulation of axonal regeneration following a complete spinal cord injury (SCI) using lampreys as an animal model. The brainstem of lampreys contains several individually identifiable descending neurons that differ greatly in their capacity for axonal regeneration after SCI. This offers a convenient model to promote or inhibit axonal regrowth in the same preparation. First, we carried out high performance liquid chromatography experiments to measure taurine levels in the spinal cord following SCI. Our results revealed a statistically significant increase in taurine levels 4 weeks post-lesion, which suggested that taurine might have a positive effect on axonal regrowth. Based on these results, we decided to apply an acute taurine treatment at the site of injury to study its effect on axon regeneration. Results from these experiments show that an acute taurine treatment enhances axonal regeneration following SCI in lampreys. This offers a novel way to try to promote axon regeneration after nervous system injuries in mammalian models.
牛磺酸是脑中最丰富的游离氨基酸之一。众所周知，牛磺酸可保护大脑免受创伤后进一步的损伤。然而，只有少数研究关注牛磺酸在损伤后轴突再生中的可能作用。在这里，我们旨在利用七鳃鳗作为动物模型，揭示牛磺酸在完全性脊髓损伤（SCI）后轴突再生调节中的可能作用。七鳃鳗的脑干包含几个可单独识别的下行神经元，它们在 SCI 后的轴突再生能力上差异很大。这为在同一制备物中促进或抑制轴突再生提供了便利的模型。首先，我们进行了高效液相色谱实验，以测量 SCI 后脊髓中的牛磺酸水平。我们的结果显示，损伤后 4 周牛磺酸水平呈统计学显著增加，这表明牛磺酸可能对轴突再生有积极影响。基于这些结果，我们决定在损伤部位施加急性牛磺酸处理，以研究其对轴突再生的影响。这些实验的结果表明，急性牛磺酸处理可增强七鳃鳗 SCI 后的轴突再生。这为在哺乳动物模型中尝试促进神经系统损伤后的轴突再生提供了一种新方法。
