Ferulic Acid Enhances Peripheral Nerve Regeneration across Long Gaps

Sheng-Chi Lee,Chun-Hsu Yao,Ming-Chang Wu,Yueh-Sheng Chen,Chin-Chuan Tsai

doi:10.1155/2013/876327

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of ferulic acid (FA) on peripheral nerve injury. In the in vitro test, the effect of FA on viability of Schwann cells was studied. In the in vivo test, right sciatic nerves of the rats were transected, and a 15 mm nerve defect was created. A nerve conduit made of silicone rubber tube filled with FA (5 and 25 μg/mL), or saline (control), was implanted into the nerve defect. Results show that the number of proliferating Schwann cells increased significantly in the FA-treated group at 25 μg/mL compared to that in the control group. After 8 weeks, the FA-treated group at 25 μg/mL had a higher rate of successful regeneration across the wide gap, a significantly calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) staining of the lamina I-II regions in the dorsal horn ipsilateral to the injury, a significantly diminished number of macrophages recruited, and a significantly shortening of the latency and an acceleration of the nerve conductive velocity (NCV) of the evoked muscle action potentials (MAPs) compared with the controls. In summary, the FA may be useful in the development of future strategies for the treatment of peripheral nerve injury.

Highlights

Nerves are not homogenous tissues of monotypic cells
Cell imaging strongly supports the beneficial effect of ferulic acid (FA) in proliferation of Schwann cells that increases DAPI positive cells, and no TUNEL positive cells were seen in both the FA-treated groups compared to the controls (Figure 2(b))
These data indicate that treatment with FA promotes viability of Schwann cells

Summary

Introduction

Nerves are not homogenous tissues of monotypic cells. Peripheral nerve regeneration represents a series of highly specialized processes of healing when considered on a cellular level. In the works of Zhang and Yannas [5], they analyzed a large normalized database from independent investigations, showing that the critical axon elongation, that is, the gap length between the transected sciatic nerve stumps at which the frequency of reconnection is just 50% in an empty silicone rubber nerve conduit, is 9.7 ± 1.8 mm for the rat. Their results implied that the nerve bridge technique can be successfully used to repair short nerve gaps in a rat model. Administration of herbal medicine has attracted the attention of investigators as a new approach to treat

Methods

Results

Conclusion