Manuel Nieto-Diaz, Francisco J. Esteban, David Reigada, Teresa Muñoz-Galdeano, Mónica Yunta, Marcos Caballero-López, Rosa Navarro-Ruiz, Ángela del Águila, Rodrigo M. Maza
Abstract
Trauma to the spinal cord causes permanent disability to more than 180,000 people every year worldwide. The initial mechanical damage triggers a complex set of secondary events involving the neural, vascular, and immune systems that largely determine the functional outcome of the spinal cord injury (SCI). Cellular and biochemical mechanisms responsible for this secondary injury largely depend on activation and inactivation of specific gene programs. Recent studies indicate that microRNAs function as gene expression switches in key processes of the SCI. Microarray data from rodent contusion models reveal that SCI induces changes in the global microRNA expression patterns. Variations in microRNA abundance largely result from alterations in the expression of the cells at the damaged spinal cord. However, microRNA expression levels after SCI are also influenced by the infiltration of immune cells to the injury site and the death and migration of specific neural cells after injury. Evidences on the role of microRNAs in the SCI pathophysiology have come from different sources. Bioinformatic analysis of microarray data has been used to identify specific variations in microRNA expression underlying transcriptional changes in target genes, which are involved in key processes in the SCI. Direct evidences on the role of microRNAs in SCI are scarcer, although recent studies have identified several microRNAs (miR-21, miR-486, miR-20) involved in key mechanisms of the SCI such as cell death or astrogliosis, among others. From a clinical perspective, different evidences make clear that microRNAs can be potent therapeutic tools to manipulate cell state and molecular processes in order to enhance functional recovery. The present article reviews the actual knowledge on how injury affects microRNA expression and the meaning of these changes in the SCI pathophysiology, to finally explore the clinical potential of microRNAs in the SCI.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 March 2014.
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#5,971,301
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Outputs from Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience
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Altmetric has tracked 22,745,803 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 73rd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,219 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.2. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its peers.
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