Wolfram Tetzlaff

Professor

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Graduate Student Supervision

Doctoral Student Supervision

Dissertations completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest dissertations.

Metabolic treatments in murine models of multiple sclerosis (2024)

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating neurological disorder characterized by autoimmune-driven demyelination within the central nervous system (CNS). Impaired remyelination contributes to the progressive stage of MS, ultimately leading to axonal and neuronal degeneration, exacerbating disability. Currently, no remyelination treatments exist for MS, and therapeutic options for progressive MS are limited. Furthermore, the impact of metabolism and dietary interventions on MS prevention and treatment remains unclear. Recent evidence suggests that ketogenic diet (KD) may offer potential benefits for individuals with MS, though its restrictive nature poses compliance challenges. To facilitate the development of targeted pharmacological treatments, this dissertation investigates the mechanisms underpinning KD benefits in preclinical murine models of MS, hypothesizing that ketone body production mediates these effects. In Chapter 2, I administered KD and intraperitoneal ketone esters (iKE) in a murine cuprizone/rapamycin (Cup/R) demyelination model, and observed enhanced myelin debris clearance, oligodendrocyte lineage cell differentiation, and remyelination. In Chapter 3, I utilized the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) preclinical model of MS and administered dietary ketone esters (KED) and found that KED conferred prophylactic and therapeutic benefits comparable to KD. Mechanisms behind KED's efficacy were explored, showing that KED can promote proliferation, recruitment, and differentiation of oligodendrocyte lineage cells by targeting the hydroxycarboxylic acid receptor 2 (HCAR2). In Chapter 4, I combined KED with metformin to synergistically augment KED's benefits, observing a significantly enhanced prophylactic effect in the KED + Metformin combination. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates that ketone esters can effectively substitute KD in providing benefits in murine models of MS. Moreover, combining ketone esters with metformin results in a synergistic accumulation of benefits, offering potential avenues for future MS treatment strategies.

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Ketogenic diet and ketone ester supplementation as an acute therapeutic for spinal cord injury (2020)

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a debilitating condition with no curative treatment. In recent years metabolism has been suggested as a factor that could be altered to enhance recovery after SCI, and research from the Tetzlaff lab showed that a ketogenic diet (KD) can improve recovery after a cervical SCI in rodents. KDs are high fat, low carbohydrate diets that have been successfully used as a treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy in children. KDs produce high levels of the ketone body, beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), which can act as an energy source or bind and activate the cell surface receptor, hydroxycarboxylic acid receptor 2 (HCAR2). BHB levels can also be increased by oral ketone ester (KE) supplementation making KE a potential alternative to KD. In Chapter 2, the use of KD on recovery after a cervical forceps crush SCI in mice was assessed. In this injury model KD did not improve recovery of the mice. In Chapter 3, the effect of KD following a more clinically relevant T9 midline contusive SCI was investigated. We observed that KD could reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines CCL3 and CCL4 at 7 days post-injury and a scRNA-sequencing analysis of CD45+ cells at the injury site at 7 days after injury confirmed KD-mediated downregulation of many immune pathways. We also used the T9 contusion injury model with wild type and HCAR2₋/₋ mice to investigate the role of HCAR2 activation on KD-mediated effects. We found that KD could reduce the influx of CD45+CD11b+ myeloid cells into the injury site at 7 days post-injury, which required the HCAR2 receptor. Chapter 4 investigated the use of KE supplementation as a treatment following a C5 hemi-contusive injury in rats. Proteomic analysis at 2 weeks after injury showed that KE and KD appear to impact different cellular pathways. In this model, KE showed only minor improvements in behavioural recovery. Together these results suggest that KD can reduce inflammation at 7 days after injury in mice and that different paradigms of KE supplementation may be needed to see behavioral improvement following SCI in rats.

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The role of oligodendrocyte remyelination in locomotor recovery after traumatic spinal cord injury (2020)

Remyelination occurs after spinal cord injury (SCI) but its functional relevance isunclear. We assessed the necessity of myelin regulatory factor (Myrf) in remyelination aftercontusive SCI by deleting the gene from platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha positive(PDGFRα-positive) oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) in mice prior to SCI. While OPCproliferation and density were not altered by Myrf inducible knockout after SCI, theaccumulation of new oligodendrocytes was prevented. This greatly inhibited myelin regenerationresulting in a loss of myelinated axons at the lesion epicenter. However, spontaneous locomotorrecovery after SCI was not altered by remyelination failure. In controls with functional MYRF,locomotor recovery preceded the onset of substantial oligodendrocyte myelin regeneration. Wenext assessed locomotor recovery in a severe model of SCI where fewer axons were spared. Hereanimals were still able to recover despite the inhibition of remyelination. We noticed that ionchannels were redistributed in demyelinated axons. Further testing showed knockout animalswere able to show conduction properties similar to that of control animals. Collectively, thesedata demonstrate that MYRF expression in PDGFRα-positive cell derived oligodendrocytes isindispensable for oligodendrocyte myelin regeneration following contusive SCI, thatremyelination is not required for spontaneous recovery of stepping in moderate or severeinjuries, and that demyelinated axons redistribute voltage gated ion channels and conductionproperties similar to that of unmyelinated axons.

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Transcriptional regulation of remyelination and its role in axonal health and locomotion (2018)

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that results in axon loss and disability. Remyelination occurs in MS and can be highly efficient. However in most MS patients, with disease chronicity remyelination fails to regenerate the majority of myelin sheaths around axons leading to chronic demyelination. This is in contrast to rodents, which typically have efficient myelin regeneration and are successful at repairing myelin in most experimental models. Remyelination may be crucial for the preservation of axons following demyelination, but causative experimental evidence demonstrating whether remyelination directly protects axons is currently lacking. I sought to develop a model that mimics remyelination failure in rodents to determine if remyelination is crucial for axonal health and locomotor recovery.In Chapter 2, the transcription factor myelin regulatory factor (MYRF), essential for developmental myelination, was deleted from oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPC)s following lysolecithin demyelination. A loss of Myrf in OPCs (Myrf ICKO) resulted in a failure of OPCs to fully differentiate into new oligodendrocytes leaving them vulnerable to apoptosis. New oligodendrocytes could not express myelin proteins and effectively regenerate myelin in Myrf ICKO mice. MS lesions were also examined for the expression of MYRF and Sox10. Fewer MYRF-positive oligodendrocyte lineage cells were found in chronically demyelinated lesions relative to those with remyelination. Therefore, a failure to express MYRF in oligodendrocyte lineage cells is associated with remyelination failure in MS.In Chapter 3, I used the Myrf ICKO mice along with cuprizone/rapamycin demyelination to determine the consequence of remyelination failure on axonal health and locomotor recovery. Inhibited oligodendrogenesis and remyelination following Myrf ICKO aggravated the loss of axons greater than a micron in diameter in the corpus callosum and impaired motor coordination, as assessed on the rotarod, for the first two weeks post cuprizone. However at later time points, Myrf ICKO mice were able to compensate for profound demyelination and improved on the rotarod. Taken together, I demonstrate that oligodendrogenesis and subsequent remyelination requires MYRF, which ameliorates axon loss and improves locomotor recovery. However, over the long-term mice are able to functionally compensate for profound demyelination.

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Myelinating cells in repair of spinal cord injury (2017)

The damage inflicted by spinal cord injury (SCI) occurs in two phases. The primary injury is a mechanical insult to the spinal cord, resulting in permanent loss of cells and tissue structure. Multiple mechanisms of secondary injury extend this damage. One such mechanism is thought to be progressive loss of myelin, such that axons that survive primary injury are rendered dysfunctional by conduction block. As a result, myelin repair has emerged as a major research focus. The goals of this research were: i) to evaluate the extent of spontaneous repair by endogenous glia, and ii) to determine whether transplantation in a clinically relevant scenario can improve the outcome of SCI. In Chapter 2, I characterized the source and extent of spontaneous myelin repair in experimental SCI. I systematically assessed the cellular origin of new myelin and myelinating cells in transgenic mice, by genetically labeling multiple lineages prior to SCI. Contrary to prevailing dogma (that endogenous myelin repair was limited), we found that ~30% of myelinated axons at the injury epicentre were ensheathed de novo (since injury) at three months after SCI. In addition, the majority of myelinating Schwann cells (SCs) in the injured spinal cord were derived from oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) and infiltration of peripheral myelinating SCs made only a small contribution. In Chapter 3, I investigated the potential for improving spontaneous repair (and the outcome of SCI) through glial transplantation. Skin-derived precursor cells directed to a SC fate (SKP-SCs) were transplanted at the site of chronic SCI. At 21 weeks after transplantation (29 weeks-post SCI), SKP-SCs contained thousands of growing/regenerating axons, which were myelinated by either transplanted or endogenous SCs. The presence of endogenous SCs was increased after SKP-SC transplantation. Rats that received SKP-SCs had higher functional motor scores and displayed less bladder wall thickening (a hallmark of bladder dysfunction following SCI) compared to controls. These data contribute to our understanding of the endogenous glial repair response after SCI, both in the absence of treatment and following a clinically relevant cell transplantation. These endogenous repair mechanisms might be exploited and augmented to develop novel treatments for SCI.

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Regeneration and plasticity of descending motor pathways following spinal cord injury (2017)

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in paralysis due in part to the inability of central nervous system(CNS) axons to regenerate following their transection. However, after anatomically incompleteSCI, partial spontaneous recovery can often occur. I studied the regeneration and plasticity ofdescending pathways involved in forelimb motor function following SCI to better understand themechanisms underlying axon regeneration failure and spontaneous motor recovery.In Chapter 2, I developed an injury model in adult mice that results in complete axotomy of therubrospinal tract and sustained deficits in forelimb motor function. I found that when a leftdorsolateral funiculus crush injury was instigated at vertebral level C4, there were sustaineddeficits in left forelimb function while when the same injury was instigated at vertebral level C6,there was spontaneous recovery in left forelimb function to baseline levels.In Chapter 3, I used the injury model developed in Chapter 2 in conditional PTEN KO mice totest the hypotheses that 1) PTEN deletion promotes rubrospinal axonal regeneration followingSCI and 2) Aging significantly diminishes the regenerative capacity of PTEN deleted rubrospinalneurons. I found that when PTEN was deleted within rubrospinal neurons in 4 week old mice,there was significant rostral axon growth and regeneration past the lesion site to ~1 mm relativeto controls. However, when PTEN was deleted within rubrospinal neurons in 7-8 month oldmice, while rostral axon growth occurred, there was no caudal regeneration. Thus, there is anage-dependent decline in regeneration of CNS neurons.In Chapter 4, I used optogenetic and chemogenetic tools to assess motor cortical plasticity inadult mice. I found that following ablation of the dorsal corticospinal tract, the motor cortex isable to re-establish output to the limbs and the minor dorsolateral corticospinal tract representing3% of direct spinal cord transmission is able to partially mediate spontaneous recovery.Taken together, these data demonstrate an age-related decline in axon regeneration in the adultmammalian CNS and show that a minor corticospinal pathway is necessary for spontaneousrecovery following SCI.

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Skin-derived precursors are a suitable alternative to peripheral nerve as a source of schwann cells for transplantation-based repair of the injured rat spinal cord (2014)

For much of human history the devastating loss of neurological functions that occurs after spinal cord injury (SCI) was thought to be irreversible, so the people afflicted with such injuries were offered no hope of effective medical treatment. Today that has changed, as advances in neurobiology and medicine over the past century have led to the development of treatments aimed specifically at repairing the injured spinal cord. The transplantation of Schwann cells (SCs) has emerged as one promising example of such a treatment, withdemonstrated efficacy in multiple animal models of SCI and encouraging preliminary results in clinical trials. Although SCs possess many of the qualities of an ideal cellular therapy, the harvest of autologous SCs from peripheral nerve (N-SCs) causes permanent nerve injury, which could be avoided by generating SCs from an alternative autologous source. One such source is skin-derived precursors (SKPs), which can be isolated from the adult mammalian dermis and differentiated into SCs (SKP-SCs) in vitro. Herein I examined the efficacy of SKP-SCs as a treatment for SCI in rodent injurymodels and compared those cells to their nerve-derived counterparts. This work provided the first demonstration of efficacy for SKP-SC therapy after thoracic contusion and showed that, much like N-SCs, SKP-SCs myelinate, promote axonal growth, and enhance functional recovery after SCI. In addition, we found evidence that SKP-SCs may have advantages over N-SCs with respect to their ability to interact favourably with spared astrocyte-rich host tissue and promote axonal growth. Subsequently we directly compared neonatal SKP-SCs and N-SCs and found that those cell types were highly similar in terms of their protein/gene expression profiles, migration and integration into astrocyte-rich domains in vitro and in vivo, and many reparative effects following transplantation into the partially crushed cervical spinal cord. Taken together our findings suggest that SKP-SCs and N-SCs have similar therapeutic efficacy, and that where differences between those two cell types exist, they consistently favour the SKP-SCs as the more favourable cell type for SCI repair. Thus, our work to-date supports the notion that SKP-SCs are a suitable alternative to N-SCs for transplantation-based central nervous system repair.

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Remyelination strategies after spinal cord injury (2012)

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in substantial oligodendrocyte death and demyelination. Remyelination is deemed critical because denuded axons not only lack the myelin necessary to achieve normal conduction velocity, but are also at increased risk of degeneration. A more rapid remyelination thus hypothesized to spare more axons from axonal degeneration, ultimately sparing neurological circuitry from the secondary damage that continues in the days and weeks following SCI. In this thesis I undertake two strategies to improve remyelination after SCI.In Chapter 2, I investigated whether transplantation of murine Platelet derived growth factor (PDGF)-responsive neural precursor cells (PRPs) could differentiate into remyelinating oligodendrocytes and improve functional recovery after SCI. Transplanted PRPs integrated into host tissue, differentiated into extensively branched mature oligodendrocytes that ensheathed multiple axons, and produced mature myelin. Thus, PRP-derived oligodendrocytes were capable of generating mature myelin sheaths on denuded CNS axons. To our surprise, although transplanted PRPs efficiently produced oligodendrocytes in the injured spinal cord, there was no significant increase in the total number of myelinated axons in PRP-transplanted versus media control animals. Likewise there was no improvement in behavioural recovery following transplantation in two separate experiments.Blocking known inhibitors of oligodendrocyte differentiation or maturation could improve remyelination. Myelin debris is present following SCI and inhibits oligodendrocyte development in vitro, and I hypothesized that myelin debris inhibits remyelination after SCI. In Chapter 3, oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) were grown in culture in the presence of myelin. Using this approach, I found that on myelin there was a robust inhibition of oligodendroglia maturation, without a corresponding increase in cell death or proliferation. To understand how myelin inhibits maturation, I measured the expression of a number of genes encoding well-characterized transcription factors that negatively regulate oligodendrocyte development. Associated with stalled maturation, I found myelin increases Inhibitor of Differentiation (ID) 2 and 4, which upon overexpression in OPCs is known to stall maturation. Thus, enhanced levels of ID2 and ID4 in oligodendroglia that are in contact with myelin provides a mechanistic understanding as to how myelin inhibits oligodendroglial maturation.

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Semaphorin 5B : an inhibitory transmembrane guidance cue reveals its secretable function (2009)

Corticofugal axons projecting to the thalamus, brainstem and spinal cord must travel the same initial trajectory through the subcortical lateral and medial ganglionic eminences, and are therefore likely subject to the same sets of guidance cues. These cues direct the course of corticofugal axons bringing them to each intermediate target, until they reach the diencephalic-telencephalic boundary, where axons targeting the thalamus turn dorsally and brainstem and spinal cord targeting axons turn ventrally. Many of these guidance cues have been elucidated, yet there are still gaps in our understanding of the formation of the corticofugal projection. I found that Sema5B expression flanked the presumptive internal capsule during its formation, and was therefore ideally situated both spatially and temporally to act as an instructive cue for descending cortical axons. In Chapter 2, I show that Sema5B is not only capable of inhibiting cortical axons in vitro, but can cause misguidance of cortical axons in slice culture when placed ectopically over normally non-Sema5B expressing regions. In addition, I show that the loss of Sema5B from the neocortical VZ resulted in aberrant penetration of this normally avoided region. Therefore Sema5B is both necessary and sufficient to inhibit the corticofugal projection. Semaphorins and their plexin receptors are frequently proteolyzed to modulate the elicited responses in navigating growth cones. In Chapter 3 I show that Sema5B cleavage results in an inhibitory fragment that in heterologous cells can produce inhibitory gradients for cortical explants in collagen gel co-cultures, and collapse dissociated cortical neuronal growth cones, an effect that can be blocked with a function disrupting antibody to the cell adhesion molecule TAG-1. This thesis shows that Sema5B, a guidance cue with a hitherto unknown function, is responsible for a very important aspect of cortical development. My work leads to a final proposal that Sema5B is in fact a two-in-one protein with separable inhibitory and alternate complex functions, the implications of which are discussed thoroughly in Chapter 4.

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Master's Student Supervision

Theses completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest theses.

Application of machine learning techniques for the quantification of myelin ultra-structure in transmission electron micrographs of the rat spinal cord (2024)

Assessing the morphology of myelin in transmission electron micrograph (TEM) images is an important research tool for studying certain neuropathologies and neuroregeneration. Additionally, TEM can be used to validate the accuracy of other methods of measuring the state of myelin as it allows direct visualization of myelin ultra-structure. Often this requires laborious manual quantification of TEM micrographs to extract useful morphological data, especially in cases where the feature of interest is not commonly measured such that software is not commercially available to aid in quantification.A recent study produced by our lab involved comparing measurements of myelin based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) T2 relaxation with TEM images in conditions of healthy and degenerating myelin in the rat spinal cord following a dorsal column transection injury. The MRI T2 techniques can quantify the amount of water trapped between layers of the myelin sheaths, as opposed to water in other spaces in healthy tissue. However, what the MRI T2 measurement was actually corresponding to in degenerating tissue was unknown. The TEM portion of this analysis involved manually tracing the area of the myelin sheath, and thresholding the image to separate intact myelin from vacuous spaces occurring in the myelin as it degenerates. This made it possible to determine that the MRI T2 technique only measures to the quantity of intact myelin in degenerating tissue. This thesis uses the TEM images and the manually quantified intact myelin measurements as data-sets for training machine learning approaches to automate this task. Three approaches are trained and evaluated: a k-nearest neighbour (KNN) approach based on natural clustering of image histograms, a standard SegNet deep-learning artificial neural network, and a more generic dense prediction artificial neural network featuring skip-connections to preserve low level data. The KNN approach was found to be completely unsuitable for the task. The SegNet approach had substantial difficulties which indicate that it did not have the flexibility to fully learn the data-set. Finally, the generic dense prediction network performed robustly in both the training and test data-sets. Additional testing is performed to contrast the performance of the two artificial neural networks.

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The effects of oral ketone esters on the NLRP3 inflammasome after spinal cord injury (2024)

Previous studies have demonstrated that induction of ketosis by a ketogenic diet (KD), a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet, can improve the pathophysiology that occurs after spinal cord injury (SCI). Thus, the potential beneficial effects of ketone esters (KE, ∆G®, a β-hydroxybutyrate diester) supplementation that can rapidly induce a metabolic state of ketosis were investigated. Following SCI, the NLRP3 inflammasome, an innate immune system receptor/sensor that regulates the activation of proinflammatory cytokines (e.g., IL-1β), is significantly upregulated. Therefore, the NLRP3 inflammasome may contribute to secondary degeneration after SCI. Starting three hours following C5 hemi-contusion (150kDyn), Sprague-Dawley rats (males 250-300g) were treated with oral gavage of water with free access to a standard diet (SD: 1004403, Dyets Inc) or oral gavage of ketone esters with free access to a standard diet supplemented with ketone esters (KE:1004404, Dyets Inc). Rats were euthanized at 1-, 2-, 7-, and 14-days post-injury, and three 5mm long pieces of the spinal cords (rostral, C4-C5; epicenter, C5-C6; caudal, C6-C7) were harvested immediately after PBS perfusion. Temporal (1, 2, 7, and 14 DPI) and positional (rostral, epicenter, and caudal) expression of the NLRP3 inflammasome components were analyzed by western blots, ELISA, and immunohistochemistry. Our data reveal that SCI, compared to sham operation, induced a significant increase of the NLRP3-associated components, with the peak of expression and activity occurring at 2 DPI. Importantly, upstream activators (NF-κB) and downstream effectors (e.g., Caspase-1 and Gasdermin D) of the inflammasome were transiently yet significantly downregulated in KE cohorts, suggesting that KE can beneficially modify the inflammatory response following SCI. In addition, our morphometric quantifications and density analysis of activated and quiescent microglia/macrophages at the injury site following SCI reveals that KE results in a lower proportion of activated microglia (i.e., the proportion of CD45⁻/Iba1⁺ over all Iba1⁺ cells) but not their density (number of cells per unit area), compared to SD. These findings demonstrate the potential neuroprotective benefits of KE supplementation initiated soon after SCI.

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The effect of remyelination blockade on axon survival and damage in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (2018)

Multiple sclerosis is the most common cause of neurologic disability in the developed world. A heterogeneous disease of unknown cause that most often presents in mid life, it is characterized by years of relapsing and remitting symptoms that eventually become progressive. The pathology of Multiple Sclerosis is characterized by resolving and non-resolving neurological deficits caused by axonal dysfunction and degeneration, which are mediated by both inflammation and demyelination. Remyelination is an intrinsic myelin repair mechanism that replaces lost myelin in response to demyelination and mitigates its pathological effects. Experimentally, remyelination has been shown to promote axon survival in inflammatory demyelination contexts, however, it is unknown if blocking remyelination will result in increased axon loss and damage. Determining the importance of remyelination for axon preservation is necessary to determine the efficacy of remyelination therapies. Assessing the effect of blocked remyelination is an important part of this picture. To determine this we used the rodent model of MS, Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE), to initiate demyelination, and blocked remyelination by inducibly deleting the gene Myelin Gene Regulatory Factor (Myrf) using the Cre-lox gene editing system. We then assessed axon survival and damage, myelination state, EAE disease severity and progression, microglial activation, and dorsal column size in the lumbar spinal cord of affected mice. We found that blocked remyelination did not affect axon survival or damage, but delayed EAE disease onset, reduced myelin in the ventral white matter and increase activation of microglia in affected areas. Strictly interpreted, our results suggest that remyelination may not be as important for axon survival as hypothesized. However, non-statistically significant trends in the results (Axon Loss p = 0.11 and Axon damage p = 0.15 in ventral/dorsal white matter combined) suggest that the lack of effect seen here may have been due to limitations and unforeseen problems encountered during these experiments. Unfortunately, these casts some doubt on our findings, but may highlight some previously unknown difficulties and effects such as delayed EAE induction and increased disease severity that may have been unintended consequences of the Myrf knock out, indicating that more investigation is warranted.

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Characterization of Oligodendrocyte Lineage Cell Responses Remote to the Lesion Site in a Murine Model of Thoracic Contusion Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) (2017)

Traumatic injury to the adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS) commonly results in permanent functional impairment due to the inability of injured CNS neurons to mount an effective regenerative response. Injury to the spinal cord is associated with a range of sensory, motor, and autonomic deficits, the most severe of which is complete paralysis. At a histological level, injury induced pathophysiological processes have been thoroughly characterized for the tissue area immediately surrounding the lesion epicentre, however remote to the lesion these changes are less well described. Previous studies have demonstrated that various perturbations, including traumatic injury, demyelination, artificial neural stimulation, neurodegeneration, and social experience, among others, induce robust oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPC) responses, which function as endogenous precursors for myelinating oligodendrocytes. De novo myelination in the adult CNS has been implicated in motor learning, memory, and optimization of neural network function, thought to represent a potent form of neural plasticity. The demonstration of robust OPC proliferation and oligodendrogenesis in models of dorsal rhizotomy, axotomy, and axon degeneration, combined with the robust OPC responses characteristic of SCI lesion epicentres, lead us to hypothesize that contusion SCI would induce significant responses in resident OPC populations remote to the lesion site (specifically comprised of OPC proliferation, oligodendrogenesis, and new myelination). This may be functionally relevant to myelin plasticity on spared motor and sensory tracts remote to the lesion. To test this hypothesis, we conducted an in vivo study employing transgenic mouse lines (i.e. PDGFRα-CreERT:ROSA26-YFP and PDGFRα-CreERT:ROSA26-mGFP) that enabled the visualization and fate-mapping of OPCs and their progeny in the adult murine spinal cord following a moderate (70 Kdyne) T9-T10 thoracic contusion injury. Consistent with our predictions, we observed robust OPC proliferation and oligodendrogenesis remote to the lesion in both the cervical and lumbar spinal cord. Surprisingly, this did not manifest as increased new myelination, attributed (at least in part) to an observed maturation impairment of newly-formed oligodendrocytes.

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The Role of the p75 Neurotrophin Receptor in Regulating Oligodendrocyte Progenitor Cell Differentiation (2014)

One major avenue towards repair of the damaged mammalian nervous system is an enhancement of the process known as remyelination. This process restores to damaged neurons the protective sheath that is critical not only for their survival but also for the conduction of their electrical signals. However, remyelination is inhibited after many types of nervous system damage as well as in degenerative diseases of the nervous system. This inhibition functions primarily through prevention of the capacity of progenitor cells to become remyelinating cells. This work aims to address the role that the p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75) – an important signalling protein that stands at the intersection of several key signalling cascades – plays in mediating this inhibition of remyelination. The intention of this work is to investigate p75 as a potential therapeutic target for clinical interventions aimed at enhancing remyelination.

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Db-camp applied to the red nucleus in rat improves the regenerative response of the rubrospinal tract after cervical spinal cord injury (2012)

A high cervical injury to the rubrospinal tract (RST) generally results in cellular and nuclear atrophy of the rubral neurons, abortive axonal regeneration and eventual retraction from the forming injurious scar and enlarging cavity. The neuronal cell body response to axonal injury plays an important role in the failure of central nervous system (CNS) neurons to regenerate. Adult mammalian CNS neurons fail to re-express a variety of genes and signalling factors, such as cAMP, after axotomy that are seen at increased levels in regenerating peripheral neurons or in developing CNS neurons. By mimicking the sustained increase in cAMP levels, prior to or during an upper cervical (C3/4) crush injury of the dorsolateral funiculus in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats using the membrane permeant analogue dibutyryl cAMP (db-cAMP) near the vicinity of rubrospinal neurons, will enhance the regenerative cell body response in order to promote axonal sprouting or regeneration to and across the site of a spinal cord injury. Two experimental groups, acute and pre-treatment, were used. Both groups received either 25mM db-cAMP (treatment) or vehicle (control) solutions delivered via 14 day mini osmotic-pumps. The pretreated group had db-cAMP infused beginning one week prior to injury for two weeks while the acutely treated group received concurrent treatment with injury. The rubrospinal tract was anterogradedly traced with biotinylated dextran amine (BDA) for quantification purposes. Camera lucida like reconstructions (CLLRs) were created for enhanced visualization and density calculation of the RST. Changes in behaviour were assessed using the vertical exploration test. Application of db-cAMP to the RN in both the acute and pretreated groups increased the number of labelled rubrospinal fibres in the gray matter and proximal to the site of injury in comparison to the controls. Db-cAMP treatment did not reduce lesion sizes nor were there any visibly traced fibres caudal to the site of injury in any of the treatment groups. Unexpectedly, pre-treatment of db-cAMP conferred no advantages over acute treatment. Behavioural analysis of spontaneous forelimb usage as indicated by the vertical exploration test revealed no significant differences between any of the db-cAMP and control groups.

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