title: Leuprolide acetate induces structural and functional recovery of injured spinal cord in rats.
abstract: Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and its synthetic analog leuprolide acetate, a GnRH agonist, have neurotrophic properties. This study was designed to determine whether administration of leuprolide acetate can improve locomotor behavior, gait, micturition reflex, spinal cord morphology and the amount of microglia in the lesion epicenter after spinal cord injury in rats. Rats with spinal cord compression injury were administered leuprolide acetate or saline solution for 5 weeks. At the 5(th) week, leuprolide acetate-treated rats showed locomotor activity recovery by 38%, had improvement in kinematic gait and exhibited voiding reflex recovery by 60%, as compared with the 1(st) week. By contrast, saline solution-treated rats showed locomotor activity recovery only by 7%, but voiding reflex did not recover. More importantly, leuprolide acetate treatment reduced microglial immunological reaction and induced a trend towards greater area of white and gray matter in the spinal cord. Therefore, leuprolide acetate has great potential to repair spinal cord injury.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, México.
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Díaz Galindo
authors.affiliation: Area of Neuroscience, Department of Reproductive Biology, CBS, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Unidad Iztapalapa, México.
authors.forename: Beatriz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gómez-González
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Immunology, Department of Microbiology, Centro de Ciencias Básicas, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, México.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Salinas
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, México.
authors.forename: Denisse
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Calderón-Vallejo
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, México.
authors.forename: Irma
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hernández-Jasso
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, México.
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bautista
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, México.
authors.forename: J Luis
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-1257-7723
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Quintanar
keywords: gait; gonadotropin-releasing hormone; inflammation; leuprolide acetate; microglia; micturition reflex; nerve regeneration; neural regeneration; neurotrophic factor; spinal cord injury