Spinal Cord Injury Reveals Multilineage Differentiation of Ependymal Cells

By K. Meletis, F. Barnabé-Heider, M. Carlén, E. Evergren, N. Tomilin, O. Shupliakov, J. Frisén. PLoS Biology, 2008

668 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Spinal cord injury often results in permanent functional impairment. Neural stem cells present in the adult spinal cord can be expanded in vitro and improve recovery when transplanted to the injured spinal cord, demonstrating the presence of cells that can promote regeneration but that normally fail to do so efficiently. Using genetic fate mapping, we show that close to all in vitro neural stem cell potential in the adult spinal cord resides within the population of ependymal cells lining the central canal. These cells are recruited by spinal cord injury and produce not only scar-forming glial cells, but also, to a lesser degree, oligodendrocytes. Modulating the fate of ependymal progeny after spinal cord injury may offer an alternative to cell transplantation for cell replacement therapies in spinal cord injury.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Developmental Neuroscience, Genetics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b77119ae38280f8e082c2c88ba2b7a782ba009fc

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

1. M. Sofroniew
2. A. Tran
3. Z. Kokaia
4. O. Lindvall
5. M. Schwartz
6. J. Silver
7. H. Vinters
8. P. Warren

In Developmental Neuroscience

1. M. Schwartz
2. S. Pluchino
3. G. Martino
4. M. Sofroniew
5. H. Vinters
6. Z. Kokaia
7. O. Lindvall
8. J. Silver

In Genetics

1. L. Naldini
2. F. Doetsch

Citations in the corpus

• The Biology of Regeneration Failure and Success After Spinal Cord Injury. (2018, background): “This phenomenon has been confirmed by other studies (170, 261).”
• EphB signaling controls lineage plasticity of adult neural stem cell niche cells (2010, background): “Ependymal cells in the adult spinal cord are even more plastic and display neural stem cell properties (Barnabé-Heider et al., 2010; Meletis et al., 2008).”
• BRAIN REGENERATION IN PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY: THE IMMUNE SIGNATURE DRIVING THERAPEUTIC PLASTICITY OF NEURAL STEM CELLS (2011, background): “, striatum (9), hippocampus (157), corticospinal system (40), spinal cord (146), subcortical white matter (77)] (FIG.”
• Astrocytes: biology and pathology (2009, background): “The source of newly divided scar-forming astrocytes is not well established, and may include mature astrocytes that re-enter the cell cycle as well as progenitor cells in the local parenchyma or in the periventricular regions [30, 33, 37, 77, 133, 141, 226].”
• Origin of new glial cells in intact and injured adult spinal cord. (2010, background): “The recombined ependymal cells all have motile cilia and homogenously express, for example, Sox9 and Vimentin (Figures 2A–2C; Meletis et al., 2008).”
• Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury: An Overview of Pathophysiology, Models and Acute Injury Mechanisms (2019, background): “These cells can give rise to new scar forming astrocytes and OPCs (278) (279) (280) .”
• Forebrain ependymal cells are Notch-dependent and generate neuroblasts and astrocytes after stroke (2009, background): “Moreover, adult spinal cord ependymal cells self-renew in vivo and give rise to scar-forming astrocytes and remyelinating oligodendrocytes in response to injur”
• Eyes Wide Open: A Critical Review of Sphere-Formation as an Assay For Stem Cells (2011, background): “However, several recent papers have resurrected the idea that multiciliated ependymal cells are stem cells, based on the claim that CD133 and FoxJ1 are exclusively expressed by ependymal cells and can be used to purify them (Coskun et al., 2008; Meletis et al., 2008).”