AAV-mediated RNAi of traumatic brain injury-induced genes in the rat hippocampus

To address the hypothesis that silencing deleterious or protective injury-induced genes in the rat hippocampus will reduce or increase the numbers of injured hippocampal neurons, alter cellular pathways essential for neuronal function and improve or worsen functional outcome after traumatic brain injury (TBI), we evaluated the effects of silencing neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) and glutathione peroxidase-1 (GPx-1) expression in the injured rat hippocampus. Two weeks post-TBI/post-AAV treatment, hippocampal pyramidal neurons were laser captured for comparative whole genome microarray analysis.