title: Effects of microtubule-associated protein tau expression on neural stem cell migration after spinal cord injury.
abstract: Our preliminary proteomics analysis suggested that expression of microtubule-associated protein tau is elevated in the spinal cord after injury. Therefore, the first aim of the present study was to examine tau expression in the injured spinal cord. The second aim was to determine whether tau can regulate neural stem cell migration, a critical factor in the successful treatment of spinal cord injury. We established rat models of spinal cord injury and injected them with mouse hippocampal neural stem cells through the tail vein. We used immunohistochemistry to show that the expression of tau protein and the number of migrated neural stem cells were markedly increased in the injured spinal cord. Furthermore, using a Transwell assay, we showed that neural stem cell migration was not affected by an elevated tau concentration in the outer chamber, but it was decreased by changes in intracellular tau phosphorylation state. These results demonstrate that neural stem cells have targeted migration capability at the site of injury, and that although tau is not a chemokine for targeted migration of neural stem cells, intracellular tau phosphorylation/dephosphorylation can inhibit cell migration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, the Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-Ping
authors.initials: ZP
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, the Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
authors.forename: Guo-Xiang
authors.initials: GX
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, the Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, the Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
authors.forename: Ting-Ting
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, China-Japan Union Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
authors.forename: Hong-Li
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, the Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
authors.forename: Tie-Jun
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4029-4202
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, the Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Yu
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9388-3794
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Yang
keywords: C2-ceramide; cell transplantation; migration; nerve regeneration; neural regeneration; neural stem cells; okadaic acid; phosphatase 2A; phosphorylation; spinal cord injury; tau protein; transwell chambers