title: The Impact of Prestretch Induced Surface Anisotropy on Axon Regeneration.
abstract: Nerve regeneration after spinal cord injury requires proper axon alignment to bridge the lesion site and myelination to achieve functional recovery. Significant effort has been invested in developing engineering approaches to induce axon alignment with less focus on myelination. Topological features, such as aligned fibers and channels, have been shown to induce axon alignment, but do not enhance axon thickness. We previously demonstrated that surface anisotropy generated through mechanical prestretch induced mesenchymal stem cells to align in the direction of prestretch. In this study, we demonstrate that static prestretch-induced anisotropy promotes dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons to extend thicker axon aggregates along the stretched direction and form aligned fascicular-like axon tracts. Moreover, Schwann cells, when cocultured with DRG neurons on the prestretched surface colocalized with the aligned axons and expressed P0 protein, are indicative of myelination of the aligned axons, thereby demonstrating that prestretch-induced surface anisotropy is beneficial in enhancing axon alignment, growth, and myelination.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.
authors.forename: Chun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.
authors.forename: Ryan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pyne
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Washington University , Saint Louis, Missouri.
authors.forename: Jungsil
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: 3 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.
authors.forename: Neil Thomas
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.affiliation: 3 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.
authors.forename: Seungik
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baek
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.|4 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chan