title: A simple model of radial nerve injury in the rhesus monkey to evaluate peripheral nerve repair.
abstract: Current research on bone marrow stem cell transplantation and autologous or xenogenic nerve transplantation for peripheral nerve regeneration has mainly focused on the repair of peripheral nerve defects in rodents. In this study, we established a standardized experimental model of radial nerve defects in primates and evaluated the effect of repair on peripheral nerve injury. We repaired 2.5-cm lesions in the radial nerve of rhesus monkeys by transplantation of autografts, acellular allografts, or acellular allografts seeded with autologous bone marrow stem cells. Five months after surgery, regenerated nerve tissue was assessed for function, electrophysiology, and histomorphometry. Postoperative functional recovery was evaluated by the wrist-extension test. Compared with the simple autografts, the acellular allografts and allografts seeded with bone marrow stem cells facilitated remarkable recovery of the wrist-extension functions in the rhesus monkeys. This functional improvement was coupled with radial nerve distal axon growth, a higher percentage of neuron survival, increased nerve fiber density and diameter, increased myelin sheath thickness, and increased nerve conduction velocities and peak amplitudes of compound motor action potentials. Furthermore, the quality of nerve regeneration in the bone marrow stem cells-laden allografts group was comparable to that achieved with autografts. The wrist-extension test is a simple behavioral method for objective quantification of peripheral nerve regeneration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Xijun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Guo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Liqiang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Honggang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Jianhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Xiaofeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics and Microsurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
authors.forename: Qingtang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhu
keywords: NSFC grant; allogeneic nerve; bone marrow stem cells; electrophysiology; nerve regeneration; neural regeneration; neurological function; peripheral nerve injury; rhesus monkeys; transplantation; wrist-extension test