Locomotor recovery following contusive spinal cord injury does not require oligodendrocyte remyelination

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05473-1
• Publication Date: 2018-07-30T14:14:44Z
• Authors: Greg J. Duncan; Sohrab B. Manesh; Brett J. Hilton; Peggy Assinck; Jie Liu; Aaron Moulson; Jason R. Plemel; Wolfram Tetzlaff
• Keywords: Remyelination

Remyelination occurs after spinal cord injury (SCI) but its functional relevance is unclear. We assessed the necessity of myelin regulatory factor (Myrf) in remyelination contusive SCI by deleting gene from platelet-derived growth receptor alpha positive (PDGFRα-positive) oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) mice prior to SCI. While OPC proliferation and density are not altered Myrf inducible knockout SCI, accumulation new oligodendrocytes largely prevented. This greatly inhibits regeneration, resulting a 44% reduction myelinated axons at lesion epicenter. However, spontaneous locomotor recovery failure. In controls with MYRF, precedes onset most regeneration. Collectively, these data demonstrate that MYRF expression PDGFRα-positive cell derived indispensable for regeneration following required stepping.