Peptide therapy with pentadecapeptide BPC 157 in traumatic nerve injury.
We focused on the healing of rat transected sciatic nerve and improvement made by stable gastric pentadecapeptide BPC 157 (10 microg, 10ng/kg) applied shortly after injury (i) intraperitoneally/intragastrically/locally, at the site of anastomosis, or after (ii) non-anastomozed nerve tubing (7 mm nerve segment resected) directly into the tube. Improvement was shown clinically (autotomy), microscopically/morphometrically and functionally (EMG, one or two months post-injury, walking recovery (sciatic functional index (SFI)) at weekly intervals). BPC 157-rats exhibited faster axonal regeneration: histomorphometrically (improved presentation of neural fascicles, homogeneous regeneration pattern, increased density and size of regenerative fibers, existence of epineural and perineural regeneration, uniform target orientation of regenerative fibers, and higher proportion of neural vs. connective tissue, all fascicles in each nerve showed increased diameter of myelinated fibers, thickness of myelin sheet, number of myelinated fibers per area and myelinated fibers as a percentage of the nerve transected area and the increased blood vessels presentation), electrophysiologically (increased motor action potentials), functionally (improved SFI), the autotomy absent. Thus, BPC 157 markedly improved rat sciatic nerve healing.
Gjurasin
Miroslav
M
Department of Pharmacology, Medical Faculty, University of Zagreb Medical School, Salata 11, POB 916, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
Miklic
Pavle
P
Zupancic
Bozidar
B
Perovic
Darko
D
Zarkovic
Kamelija
K
Brcic
Luka
L
Kolenc
Danijela
D
Radic
Bozo
B
Seiwerth
Sven
S
Sikiric
Predrag
P
D000818:Animals; D000897:Anti-Ulcer Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004333:Drug Administration Routes; D008297:Male; D009416:Nerve Regeneration / Q000187:drug effects*; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000494:pharmacology*; D011506:Proteins / Q000494:pharmacology*; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D012584:Sciatic Nerve / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000473:pathology; D020196:Trauma, Nervous System
D000897:Anti-Ulcer Agents; D010446:Peptide Fragments; D011506:Proteins; C083833:BPC 157