Shock waves induce an evolutionary conserved mechanism of spinal cord regeneration via Toll-like receptor 3

Shock wave therapy (SWT) is improving motor function and decreasing lesion size in wild-type but not Tlr3-/- mice via IL6 dependent differentiation of neuronal progenitor cells. Both SWT and TLR3 stimulation enhance neuronal sprouting and survival, even in human spinal cord cultures. We could also identify tlr3 as a crucial enhancer of spinal cord generation in zebrafish. In order to substantiate underlying mechanisms of the SWT for spinal cords, cultured human neurons (neuroblastoma cell line) were treated with SWT and gene expression profiling were performed by RNAseq.

冲击波疗法（Shock Wave Therapy，SWT）可通过白细胞介素6（IL6）依赖的神经祖细胞（neuronal progenitor cells）分化，改善野生型（wild-type）小鼠的运动功能并缩小病灶体积，但对Toll样受体3缺陷型（Tlr3-/-）小鼠无上述效应。无论是冲击波疗法还是Toll样受体3（TLR3）刺激，均能促进神经芽生（neuronal sprouting）与细胞存活，该效果在人脊髓体外培养（human spinal cord cultures）体系中同样得以验证。本研究还证实，Tlr3是斑马鱼（zebrafish）脊髓生成的关键增强因子。为阐明冲击波疗法针对脊髓的潜在作用机制，研究团队对培养的人神经元（神经母细胞瘤细胞系，neuroblastoma cell line）施以冲击波疗法，并通过RNA测序（RNA-seq）完成了基因表达谱分析。