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Nerve regeneration

A dual role for reactive astrocytes

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 7, pages 594–595 (2006)Cite this article

In the injured CNS, reactive astrocytes form dense scar tissues — the glial scar — around the lesion site, and this serves to compact inflammatory cells and re-seal the blood–brain barrier after it has been broken by injury. To regenerating axons, the glial scar is bad news and represents an insurmountable molecular and physical barrier. In mice, the glial scar is formed around 14 days after SCI, which coincides with the peak of functional improvement.

Do the initial astrocytic responses have a role in functional recovery in the early phase following injury? To address this issue, the researchers generated mice with defective astrocytic responses. The mice had selective deletion of either Stat3 (signal transducer and activator of transcription 3) or its inhibitor Soc3 (suppressor of cytokine signalling 3) in reactive astroctyes. STAT3 is thought to mediate a variety of biological processes, such as wound healing and cellular migration, and is a downstream effector molecule of several cytokines involved in regulating astrogliosis.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Okada, S. et al. Conditional ablation of Stat3 or Soc3 discloses a dual role for reactive astrocytes after spinal cord injury. Nature Med. 18 June 2006 (doi:10.1038/nm1425)

FURTHER READING

  1. Yiu, G. & He, Z. Glial inhibition of CNS axon regeneration. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 7, 617–627 (2006)

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  1. Jane Qiu
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Qiu, J. A dual role for reactive astrocytes. Nat Rev Neurosci 7, 594–595 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1977

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1977

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