Early Gene expression changes after axonal injury. Mus musculus

We used optic nerve injury as a model to study early signaling events in the neuronal soma following axonal injury. Optic nerve injury results in the selective death of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). The time course of cell death takes place over a period of days with the earliest detection of RGC death at about 48 hr post injury. We hypothesized that in the period immediately following axonal injury, there are changes in the soma that signal surrounding glia and neurons and that start programmed cell death. In the current study, we investigated early changes in cellular signaling and gene expression that occur within the first 6 hrs post optic nerve injury. We detected differences in phosphoproteins and gene expression within this time period that we used to interpret temporal events. Our studies revealed that the entire retina has been signaled by the RGC soma within 30 min after optic nerve injury and that pathways that modulate cell death are likely to be active in RGCs within 6 hrs following axonal injury Keywords: Stress Response Overall design: In the treated animals, axons of the optic nerve were crushed with fine forceps for 10 sec, 1 mm posterior to the globe, under direct visualization, within an intact meningeal sheath. Controls were contralateral eyes from the same animals in each group that had not been injured. After 6 hr eyes were enucleated and processed for tissue sectionin