The soft mechanical signature of glial scars in the central nervous system
Name
The soft mechanical.pdf
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13.85 MB
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Author(s)
Weber, Isabell P.
Sheridan, Graham K.
Koser, David E.
Soleman, Sara
Haenzi, Barbara
Bradbury, Elizabeth J.
Fawcett, James
Franze, Kristian
Moeendarbary, Emadaldin
Date Issued
March 2017
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Moeendarbary, Emad, Isabell P. Weber, Graham K. Sheridan, David E. Koser, Sara Soleman, Barbara Haenzi, Elizabeth J. Bradbury, James Fawcett, and Kristian Franze. “The Soft Mechanical Signature of Glial Scars in the Central Nervous System.” Nature Communications 8 (March 20, 2017): 14787.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Injury to the central nervous system (CNS) alters the molecular and cellular composition of neural tissue and leads to glial scarring, which inhibits the regrowth of damaged axons. Mammalian glial scars supposedly form a chemical and mechanical barrier to neuronal regeneration. While tremendous effort has been devoted to identifying molecular characteristics of the scar, very little is known about its mechanical properties. Here we characterize spatiotemporal changes of the elastic stiffness of the injured rat neocortex and spinal cord at 1.5 and three weeks post-injury using atomic force microscopy. In contrast to scars in other mammalian tissues, CNS tissue significantly softens after injury. Expression levels of glial intermediate filaments (GFAP, vimentin) and extracellular matrix components (laminin, collagen IV) correlate with tissue softening. As tissue stiffness is a regulator of neuronal growth, our results may help to understand why mammalian neurons do not regenerate after injury.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14787
