Reinnervation of Muscular Targets by Nerve Regeneration through Guidance Conduits

Abstract

We established histopathologic and neurophysiologic approaches to examine whether different designs of polycaprolactone-engineered nerve conduits (hollow vs. laminated) could promote nerve regeneration as autologous grafts after transection of sciatic nerves. The assessments included morphometric analysis at the level of sciatic nerve, neuromuscular junction (NMJ) and gastrocnemius muscle, and nerve conduction studies on sciatic nerves. Six months after nerve grafting, the nerve fiber density in the hollow-conduit group was similar to that in the autologous-graft group; the laminated-conduit group only achieved approximately 20% of these values. The consequences of these differences were reflected in nerve growth into muscular targets; this was demonstrated by combined cholinesterase histochemistry for NMJ and immunohistochemistry for nerve fibers innervating NMJ with an axonal marker, protein gene product 9.5. Hollow conduits had similar index of NMJ innervation as autologous grafts; the values were higher than those of laminated conduits. Among the 3 groups there were same patterns of differences in the cross-sectional area of muscle fibers and amplitudes of compound muscle action potential. These results indicate that hollow conduits were as efficient as autologous grafts to facilitate nerve regeneration, and provide a multidisciplinary approach to quantitatively evaluate muscular reinnervation after nerve injury.

Peptide-surface modification of poly(caprolactone) with laminin-derived sequences for adipose-derived stem cell applications

“…This tissue engineered construct is suitable for bone and peripheral nerve applications intended to transplant ASCs into the defect. It is known that PCL-based nerve conduits can facilitate regeneration in a sciatic nerve defect [15]. PCL have also been tested for bone tissue engineering applications.…”

“…For these two applications, poly(caprolactone) (PCL)-based scaffolds have shown promising results [13][14][15]. This paper describes a tissue-engineered construct that consists of a biodegradable polyester, PCL, containing laminin-derived peptides sequences, IKVAV, RGD, or YIGSR, covalently attached to the surface of the polymer.…”

Functional recovery of denervated muscle by neurotization using nerve guidance channels

“…This suggests that nerve guidance channels may be used to improve neurotization in patients with long‐gap nerve injuries and who lack a distal nerve segment for anastomosis. The present study shows that neurotization using concurrent nerve guidance may improve functional outcome, although there have been a number of preclinical and clinical studies describing the effect of interposing a nerve conduit across nerve defects (Alluin et al ., ; Belkas et al ., ; Bellamkonda, ; Chiang et al ., ; Johnson et al ., ; Kim et al ., , ; Sierpinski et al ., ; Wang et al ., ).…”

The development of a normalization method for comparing nerve regeneration effectiveness among different graft types

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