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Astrocytes as therapeutic targets after spinal cord injury 

HUANG Xiao, GU Ya-Kun, CHENG Xue-Yan, SU Zhi-Da^*

Institute of Neuroscience and Key Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology of Ministry of Education, The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China

Abstract

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a challenging medical problem in the field of neurology, showing high incidence rate, disability rate, treatment cost and low-aged trend. Despite the clinical application of drug intervention, surgical treatment and modern rehabilitation training, no ideal curative effect has been achieved. Therefore, future study is necessary to clarify detailed pathological mechanism of SCI and identify the potential target cells for therapeutic intervention. In the central nervous system (CNS), astrocytes are the most abundant and widely distributed glial cells which play multiple key roles in maintaining homeostasis of the CNS in physiological and pathological conditions. Increasing evidence indicates that astrocytes are ideal therapeutic target cells for SCI. Here, we review current knowledge of the roles of astrocytes in the pathological reaction after SCI, astroglial transplantation and astrocyte reprogramming.

Key words: spinal cord injury; astrocytes ; transplantation ; reprogramming

Received: 2017-03-21　　Accepted: 2017-09-30

Corresponding author: 苏志达　　E-mail: suzhida@smmu.edu.cn

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2017.0078

Citing This Article：

HUANG Xiao, GU Ya-Kun, CHENG Xue-Yan, SU Zhi-Da. Astrocytes as therapeutic targets after spinal cord injury  . Acta Physiol Sin 2017; 69 (6): 794-804 (in Chinese with English abstract).