Uncovering the role of blood vessels during spinal cord regeneration in zebrafish

• Autor(a) principal: Costa, Mariana Antas Rebocho da
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/59495
• topic: Spinal Cord; Spinal Cord Injury; Blood-Spinal Cord Barrier; Regeneration; Angiogenesis; Zebrafish; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Outras Engenharias e Tecnologias

The spinal cord is the region of the central nervous system responsible for the bidirectional relay of information between the brain and the rest of the body. For this reason, damages to the spinal cord can result in devastating consequences. Spinal cord injury (SCI) occurs due to a physical trauma and causes loss of motor and sensitive function. Additionally, the initial trauma provokes the disruption of the blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB). This results in the leakage of blood to the tissue, further damaging the spinal cord. In mammals, like humans and mice (Mus musculus), endogenous attempts to repair the resulting damage occur, however, these attempts are mostly unsuccessful due to the present of growthinhibitory molecules and structures. As such, no significant recovery is accomplished. By contrast, zebrafish (Danio rerio) are able to regenerate their spinal cord and previous work from our lab showed that, during regeneration, the injured tissue revascularizes and that blood flow is observed in these vessels. In this work, we followed the recovery of the BSCB during spinal cord regeneration in zebrafish at different timepoints after injury. Our results showed that the reestablishment of the BSCB occurred between 3 dpi and 7 dpi, indicating that the new blood vessels rapidly become functional in zebrafish. In addition, in order to study the importance of revascularization after SCI, we attempted to inhibit the angiogenic process that occurs during spinal cord regeneration. Our preliminary results suggest that the inhibition of angiogenesis results in impaired motor function. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved are not yet understood. These results allow a better understanding of the regenerative process in zebrafish and may provide clues regarding the fundamental differences that exist between this animal model and mammals.