In this study, we loaded human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells onto human amniotic membrane with epithelial cells to prepare nerve conduits, i.e., a relatively closed nerve regeneration chamber. After neurolysis, the injured radial nerve was enwrapped with the prepared nerve conduit, which was fixed to the epineurium by sutures, with the cellon the inner surface of the conduit. Simultaneously, a 1.0 mL aliquot of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cellsuspension was injected into the distal and proximal ends of the injured radial nerve with 1.0 cm intervals. A total of 1.75 × 107 cells were seeded on the amniotic membrane. In the control group, patients received only neurolysis. At 12 weeks after celltransplantation, more than 80%of patients exhibited obvious improvements in muscular strength, and touch and pain sensations. In contrast, these improve-ments were observed only in 55-65% of control patients. At 8 and 12 weeks, muscular electro-physiological function in the region dominated by the injured radial nerve was significantly better in the transplantation group than the control group. After celltransplantation, no immunological rejec-tions were observed. These findings suggest that human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cel-loaded amniotic membrane can be used for the repair of radial nerve injury.

BACKGROUND: Neural regeneration fol owing nerve injury is an emerging field that attracts ex-tending interests al over the world. OBJECTIVE: To use bibliometric indexes to track studies focusing on neural regeneration, and to investigate the relationships among geographic origin, countries and institutes, keywords in the published articles, and especial y focus on the region distribution, institution distribution, as wel as col aborations in Chinese papers indexed in the Web of Science. METHODS: A list of neural regeneration studies was generated by searching the database of the Web of Science-Expanded using the term“Neural Regenera*”. Inclusive criteria:(1) articles in the field of neural regeneration;(2) fundamental research on animals, clinical trials and case reports;(3) article types: article, review, proceedings paper, note, letter, editorial material, discussion, book chapter; (4) year of publication: 2003-2012; and (5) citation database: Science Citation In-dex-Expanded. Exclusive criteria: (1) articles requiring manual searching or with access only by telephone;(2) unpublished articles;and (3) corrections. RESULTS:A total of 4 893 papers were retrieved from the Web of Science published between 2003 and 2012. The papers covered 65 countries or regions, of which the United States ranked first with 1 691 papers. The most relevant papers were in the neurosciences and cellbiology, and the key-word “stem cel” was the most frequent. In recent years, China showed a great increase in the number of papers. Over the entire 10 years, there were 922 Chinese papers, with Jilin University ranking first with 58 articles. Chinese papers were published in connection with many countries, in-cluding the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Among the connections, the papers published by the Chinese and the American are 107, with the highest rate. With regard to funding, 689 articles were funded from various projects, occupying 74.72% of the total amount. In these projects, National Foundation and Science and Technology programs were the majority. CONCLUSION:Our bibliometric analysis provides a historical perspective on the progress of neural regeneration research. At present, the number of articles addressing neural regeneration is in-creasing rapidly; however, through analysis of citations it is clear that there is a long way to go to improve the academic quality.

It is wel known that peripheral nerve injury should be treated immediately in the clinic, but in some instances, repair can be delayed. This study investigated the effects of immediate versus delayed (3 days after injury) neurorrhaphy on repair of transected sciatic nerve in New Zealand rabbits using stereological, histomorphological and biomechanical methods. At 8 weeks after immediate and de-layed neurorrhaphy, axon number and area in the sciatic nerve, myelin sheath and epineurium thickness, Schwann cellmorphology, and the mechanical property of nerve fibers did not differ ob-viously. These results indicate that delayed neurorrhaphy do not produce any deleterious effect on sciatic nerve repair.

Iron overload can lead to cytotoxicity, and it is a risk factor for diabetic peripheral neuropathy. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. We conjectured that iron overload-induced neurotoxicity might be associated with oxidative stress and the NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)/ARE signaling pathway. As an in vitro cellular model of diabetic peripheral neuropathy, PC12 cells ex-posed to high glucose concentration were used in this study. PC12 cells were cultured with ferric ammonium citrate at different concentrations to create iron overload. PC12 cells cultured in ferric ammonium citrate under high glucose concentration had significantly low cellviability, a high rate of apoptosis, and elevated reactive oxygen species and malondialdehyde levels. These changes were dependent on ferric ammonium citrate concentration. Nrf2 mRNA and protein expression in the fer-ric ammonium citrate groups were inhibited markedly in a dose-dependent manner. Al changes could be inhibited by addition of deferoxamine. These results indicate that iron overload aggravates oxidative stress injury in neural cells under high glucose concentration and that the Nrf2/ARE sig-naling pathway might play an important role in this process.

Our previous findings confirmed that the nerve growth factor-containing fibrin glue membrane pro-vides a good microenvironment for peripheral nerve regeneration;however, the precise mechanism remains unclear. p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) plays an important role in the regulation of pe-ripheral nerve regeneration. We hypothesized that a nerve growth factor-containing fibrin glue membrane can promote neural regeneration by up-regulating p75NTR expression. In this study, we used a silicon nerve conduit to bridge a 15 mm-long sciatic nerve defect and injected a mixture of nerve growth factor and fibrin glue at the anastomotic site of the nerve conduit and the sciatic nerve. Through RT-PCR and western blot analysis, nerve growth factor-containing fibrin glue membrane significantly increased p75NTR mRNA and protein expression in the Schwann cells at the anasto-motic site, in particular at 8 weeks after injection of the nerve growth factor/fibrin glue mixture. These results indicate that nerve growth factor-containing fibrin glue membrane can promote pe-ripheral nerve regeneration by up-regulating p75NTR expression in Schwann cells.

Angiogenin is associated with the pathogenesis of diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Here, we se-quenced the coding region of the angiogenin gene in genomic DNA from 207 patients with type 2 diabetes mel itus (129 diabetic peripheral neuropathy patients and 78 diabetic non-neuropathy pa-tients) and 268 healthy controls. Al subjects were from the Han population of northern China. No mutations were found. We then compared the genotype and allele frequencies of the angiogenin synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism rs11701 between the diabetic peripheral neuropathy patients and controls, and between the diabetic neuropathy and non-neuropathy patients, using a case-control design. We detected no statistical y significant genetic associations. Angiogenin may not be associated with genetic susceptibility to diabetic peripheral neuropathy in the Han population of northern China.

Even though many studies have identified roles of proteasomes in axonal degeneration, the mo-lecular mechanisms by which axonal injury regulates proteasome activity are stil unclear. In the present study, we found evidence indicating that extracellular calcium influx is an upstream regula-tor of proteasome activity during axonal degeneration in injured peripheral nerves. In degenerating axons, the increase in proteasome activity and the degradation of ubiquitinated proteins were sig-nificantly suppressed by extracellular calcium chelation. In addition, electron microscopic findings revealed selective inhibition of neurofilament degradation, but not microtubule depolymerization or mitochondrial swel ing, by the inhibition of calpain and proteasomes. Taken together, our findings suggest that calcium increase and subsequent proteasome activation are an essential initiator of neurofilament degradation in Wal erian degeneration.

Emerging studies of treating spinal cord injury (SCI) with adult stem cells led us to evaluate the effects of transplantation of hair fol icle stem cells in rats with a compression-induced spinal cord lesion. Here, we proposed a hypothesis that rat hair fol icle stem celltransplantation can promote the recovery of injured spinal cord. Compression-induced spinal cord injury was induced in Wistar rats in this study. The bulge area of the rat vibrissa fol icles was isolated, cultivated and characterized with nestin as a stem cellmarker. 5-Bromo-2′-deoxyuridine (BrdU) labeled bulge stem cells were transplanted into rats with spinal cord injury. Immunohistochemical staining results showed that some of the grafted cells could survive and differentiate into oligodendrocytes (receptor-interacting protein positive cells) and neuronal-like cells (βIII-tubulin positive cells) at 3 weeks after transplantation. In addition, recovery of hind limb locomotor function in spinal cord injury rats at 8 weeks fol owing celltransplantation was assessed using the Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan (BBB) locomotor rating scale. The results demon-strate that the grafted hair fol icle stem cells can survive for a long time period in vivo and differentiate into neuronal- and glial-like cells. These results suggest that hair fol icle stem cells can promote the recovery of spinal cord injury.

In vitro experiments have demonstrated that neuronal-like cells derived from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can survive, migrate, integrate and help to restore the function and be-haviors of spinal cord injury models, and that they may serve as a suitable approach to treating spinal cord injury. However, it is very difficult to track transplanted cells in vivo. In this study, we in-jected superparamagnetic iron oxide-labeled neuronal-like cells into the subarachnoid space in a rabbit model of spinal cord injury. At 7 days after celltransplantation, a smal number of dot-shaped low signal intensity shadows were observed in the spinal cord injury region, and at 14 days, the number of these shadows increased on T2-weighted imaging. Perl’s Prussian blue staining de-tected dot-shaped low signal intensity shadows in the spinal cord injury region, indicative of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticle-labeled cells. These findings suggest that transplanted neuronal-like cells derived from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can migrate to the spinal cord injury region and can be tracked by magnetic resonance in vivo. Magnetic resonance imaging represents an efficient noninvasive technique for visual y tracking transplanted cells in vivo.

Inducible nitric oxide synthase and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors have been shown to participate in nerve cellinjury during spinal cord ischemia. This study observed a protective effect of curcumin on ischemic spinal cord injury. Models of spinal cord ischemia were established by ligating the lumbar artery from the left renal artery to the bifurcation of the abdominal aorta. At 24 hours after model establishment, the rats were intraperitoneal y injected with curcumin. Reverse transcrip-tion-polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemical results demonstrated that after spinal cord ischemia, inducible nitric oxide synthase and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor mRNA and protein expression significantly increased. However, curcumin significantly decreased inducible nitric oxide synthase and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor mRNA and protein expression in the ischemic spinal cord. Tarlov scale results showed that curcumin significantly improved motor function of the rat hind limb after spinal cord ischemia. The results demonstrate that curcumin exerts a neuroprotective ef-fect against ischemic spinal cord injury by decreasing inducible nitric oxide synthase and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor expression.

Magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging has been shown to quantitatively measure the early pathological changes in chronic cervical spondylotic myelopathy. In this study, a novel spongy pol-yurethane material was implanted in the rat C 3-5 epidural space to establish a rat model of chronic cervical spondylotic myelopathy. Diffusion tensor data were used to predict pathological changes. Results revealed that the fractional anisotropy value gradual y decreased at 4, 24, and 72 hours and 1 week after injury in rat spinal cord, showing a time-dependent manner. Average diffusion coeffi-cient increased at 72 hours and 1 week after implantation. Hematoxylin-eosin staining and Luxol-fast-blue staining exhibited that the number of neurons in the anterior horn of the spinal cord gray matter and the nerve fiber density of the white matter gradual y reduced with prolonged com-pression time. Neuronal loss was most significant at 1 week after injury. Results verified that the fractional anisotropy value and average diffusion coefficient reflected the degree of pathological change in the site of compression in rat models at various time points after chronic spinal cord compression injury, which potential y has a reference value in the early diagnosis of chronic cervical spondylotic myelopathy.