A Systems-Level Analysis of the Peripheral Nerve Intrinsic Axonal Growth Program

  • Vijayendran Chandran
  • , Giovanni Coppola
  • , Homaira Nawabi
  • , Takao Omura
  • , Revital Versano
  • , Eric A. Huebner
  • , Alice Zhang
  • , Michael Costigan
  • , Ajay Yekkirala
  • , Lee Barrett
  • , Armin Blesch
  • , Izhak Michaelevski
  • , Jeremy Davis-Turak
  • , Fuying Gao
  • , Peter Langfelder
  • , Steve Horvath
  • , Zhigang He
  • , Larry Benowitz
  • , Mike Fainzilber
  • , Mark Tuszynski
  • Clifford J. Woolf, Daniel H. Geschwind

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

290 Scopus citations

Abstract

The regenerative capacity of the injured CNS in adult mammals is severely limited, yet axons in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) regrow, albeit to a limited extent, after injury. We reasoned that coordinate regulation of gene expression in injured neurons involving multiple pathways was central to PNS regenerative capacity. To provide a framework for revealing pathways involved in PNS axon regrowth after injury, we applied a comprehensive systems biology approach, starting with gene expression profiling of dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) combined with multi-level bioinformatic analyses and experimental validation of network predictions. We used this rubric to identify a drug that accelerates DRG neurite outgrowth in vitro and optic nerve outgrowth in vivo by inducing elements of the identified network. The work provides a functional genomics foundation for understanding neural repair and proof of the power of such approaches in tackling complex problems in nervous system biology.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)956-970
Number of pages15
JournalNeuron
Volume89
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Mar 2016
Externally publishedYes

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