Immune microenvironment heterogeneity of concurrent adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma in multiple primary lung cancers.

The molecular profiles and tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) of multiple primary lung cancers (MPLCs) presenting as concurrent lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) remain unknown. We aimed to clarify these factors. We performed whole-exome sequencing (WES), RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq), and multiplex immunohistochemistry (mIHC) for five patients with concurrent ADC and SQCC. We found the genetic mutations were similar between ADC and SQCC groups. RNA-Seq revealed that the gene expression and pathways enriched in ADC and SQCC groups were quite different. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSVA) showed that nine gene sets were significantly differentially expressed between the ADC and SQCC groups (p < 0.05), with four gene sets relevant to squamous cell features upregulated in the SQCC group and five gene sets upregulated in the ADC group. Reactome enrichment analysis of differentially expressed genes showed that the immune function-related pathways, including programmed cell death, innate immune system, interleukin-12 family signaling, and toll-like receptor 2/4 pathways, etc. were significantly enriched. Transcriptomic TIME analysis, with mIHC in patient specimens and in vivo validation, showed tumor-infiltrating immune cells were significantly more enriched and diverse in ADC, especially CD8 + T cells. Our results revealed that the transcriptomic profiles and TIME features were quite different between ADC and SQCC lesions. ADC lesions exhibited a more active TIME than SQCC lesions in MPLCs.

A wavelet coherence approach to zoning supply-demand matching of carbon sequestration service.

Carbon sequestration (CS) is an important regulating service provided by natural ecosystem which plays an important role in mitigating global climate change. However, there is often spatial mismatch between the carbon sequestration supply and demand (CSSD), which makes it difficult to reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon sinks to achieve local carbon balance. Therefore, it is important to clarify the optimal scale to explore spatial matches and mismatches between CSSD and delimit spatial units for implementing effective carbon-focused management policies. Taking Hunan Province, China as an example, we evaluated CSSD in 2001 and 2017, and identified the optimal scale of spatial matching based on wavelet coherence analysis. The results showed that from 2001 to 2017, CS supply in Hunan Province increased by 6.45 %, while CS demand increased by 261.11 %. 8.40 km was identified as the optimal scale of CSSD spatial matches and mismatches, and Hunan Province could be divided into 3231 spatial units including four types according to the combination of CSSD, i.e. High supply-High demand, Low supply-Low demand, High supply-Low demand and Low supply-High demand. Based on the type changes of spatial units from 2001 to 2017, it was found that the key areas in need of ecological restoration were located in the east side of Xuefeng Mountains and the west side of Luoxiao Mountains, which could support accurate ecosystem monitoring and management under the background of improving the 'one map' of territorial space in Hunan Province. Based on wavelet coherence analysis, this study provided a spatial zoning approach for sustainable land use management, with a special focus on carbon sequestration supply and demand.

Nernst effect in anisotropic four-terminal topological nodal-line semimetals.

The Nernst effect is the transverse mode of thermoelectric transport, in which a longitudinal thermal gradient induces a transverse current in the conductor while under a perpendicular magnetic field. Here the Nernst effect in a mesoscopic topological nodal-line semimetals (TNLSMs) system of four-terminal cross-bar with the spin-orbit coupling under a perpendicular magnetic field is studied. The Nernst coefficientNcin two non-equivalen connection modes (kz-ymode andkx-ymode) is calculated based on the tight-binding Hamiltonian combined with the nonequilibrium Green's function method. When the magnetic field is absent withφ = 0.0, the Nernst coefficientNc=0is exactly regardless of the temperature. When the magnetic field is not zero, the Nernst coefficient exhibits a series of densely oscillating peaks. The height of peak strongly depends on the magnetic field, and the Nernst coefficient is an even function of the Fermi energyEFsatisfying the symmetrical propertyNc(-EF)=Nc(EF). The Nernst coefficient is also closely related to the temperatureT. When the temperature is very low (orT→0), the Nernst coefficient depends linearly on temperature. In the presence of a strong magnetic field, the Nernst coefficient shows peaks when the Fermi energy crosses the Landau levels. Under the weak magnetic field, the influence of spin-orbit coupling in TNLSMs materials on Nernst effect is very obvious. In the presence of the mass term, thePT-symmetry of the system is destroyed, the nodal ring of TNLSMs is broken and an energy gap will be opened. The Nernst coefficientNchas a large value in the energy gap, which is very promising for the application of the transverse thermoelectric transport.

Extraction, Physicochemical Properties, Functional Activities and Applications of Inulin Polysaccharide: a Review.

Inulin is a naturally soluble dietary fiber that is widely distributed and primarily derived from plants. As a reserve biopolysaccharide in plants, inulin is considered an indigestible carbohydrate of fructan because of its unique ß-(2,1)-glycosidic bond structure. Numerous recent animal and human experimental studies have shown that functional inulin possesses multiple bioactivities, including immunomodulatory, antioxidant, antitumor, hepatoprotective, hypoglycemic, and gastrointestinal protective activities. Due to its increasing popularity, people tend to consume foods containing inulin. Moreover, inulin holds promise as a bioactive compound for use in the development of various food products. Therefore, this paper provides a detailed review of the extraction method, physicochemical properties, functional activity, and application development of inulin polysaccharides, to provide a theoretical foundation for further advancements in the fields of preparation and application of functional foods.

Stage response of vegetation dynamics to urbanization in megacities: A case study of Changsha City, China.

Urban vegetation affects urban microclimate and maintains biodiversity, which is vital to the social-ecological system. However, there is a lack of research on quantitatively identifying urbanization stage impact on vegetation dynamics, and the stage difference in the response of vegetation dynamics to urbanization characteristics is not clear. In this study, taking Changsha City as an example, we explored the response of vegetation dynamics to urbanization, and identified the impact stages of urbanization on vegetation dynamics as well as their social-ecological characteristics. The results showed that the vegetation dynamics in Changsha City presented spatial pattern of "increase-decrease-increase" from downtown to outside in the past 20 years. The population density, GDP density and construction land proportion firstly inhibited vegetation growth, and then promoted it, with the turning points of 141.58 million yuan/km2, 1205 person/km2, and 19.80 %, respectively. Then, the urbanization impact on vegetation dynamics was quantitatively divided into three stages according to the vegetation change speed, and in different stages, urbanization impacts on vegetation dynamics were compared. This study illustrated the typical stage feature of the urbanization impact on vegetation dynamics.

Non-linear effects of meteorological variables on cooling efficiency of African urban trees.

Urban tree cover is widely regarded as an environmentally-friendly and effective urban cooling approach. Meteorological variables, including air temperature, wind speed, and humidity, have complex impacts on the cooling efficiency (CE) of urban trees (i.e., the negative ratio of the land surface temperature change to the tree cover percentage change). This means that increasing the urban tree cover to alleviate heat stress is not necessarily suitable for cities with different climates. African cities are confronted with larger heat risks but lack considerations for the effectiveness of urban tree cooling in urban planning. In this study, 40 African major cities with population greater than 500,000 in different climatic regions were selected, and 1459 CEs during each city's corresponding warmest 3 consecutive months were calculated combined with the availability of meteorological data. The generalized additive models revealed the non-linear impacts of air temperature/temperature dew point difference on CE, which were more evident in arid cities. The CE of urban trees actually increased and then decreased along with the increase of air temperature/temperature dew point difference, and the turning point were 34 °C/26 °C, respectively. African cities would have different frequencies of warm days with an air temperature over 34 °C under different Shared Socioeconomic Pathways within the next 30 years. Specially, the cities around Sahel would suffer up to 40-60% days over 34 °C, which meant their urban tree CE would decrease along with air temperature increase. This study highlighted that in African cities, especially those with arid climate, it was unadvisable to only count on increasing tree cover to alleviate urban heat stress in the warming future, which called for other combined cooling strategies.

Elevation dependency of ecosystem services supply efficiency in great lake watershed.

Although it is well acknowledged that the improvement of ecosystem services is conducive to human well-being, there is still a lack of approach to determining reasonable improvement goals, especially for ecosystem services with trade-off relationship. Based on the method of production possibility frontier (PPF), this study presented a novel approach to identifying the improvement goals of interacting ecosystem services with considering their context dependency. By calculating the gap between the current supply of ecosystem services and the reasonable improvement goal, the ecosystem services supply efficiency was defined and measured to identify the optimization potentials of ecosystem services with trade-off relationship. The results showed that the supply efficiency of ecosystem services (grain production and water purification) decreased and then increased significantly along with the increasing of farmland area ratio in the Dongting Lake Basin (DLB). Meanwhile, the inflection point appeared when the farmland area ratio was 0.16. The change of farmland area ratio was significantly influenced by the change of elevation, with the regression coefficients of elevation on the left and right sides of the inflection point being -1.28 and -0.5 respectively, which were higher than that of other factors. Along with the increasing of elevation, the ecosystem services supply efficiency decreased but increased when the elevation exceeded 721.74 m. Furthermore, the sub-watersheds with farmland area ratio below the inflection point, i.e. mainly high elevation areas, were located around national or provincial level poor counties, posing a great challenge for improving ecosystem services with trade-off relationship. Development strategies for sub-watersheds should consider the non-linear trade-offs of ecosystem services, especially the opposite stages of supply efficiency. This study highlighted the elevation dependency of ecosystem services supply efficiency through farmland area ratio in great lake watershed.

A wavelet coherence approach to detecting ecosystem services trade-off response to land use change.

Clarifying the complex land use impacts on ecosystem services (ESs) trade-off will be beneficial to watershed sustainable development, especially through scientific land use management and decision making. Dongting Lake Basin (DLB) is not only one of the most significant ecological barriers for the Yangtze River Economic Belt, but also an important grain production base of China. The trade-off between the grain production (GP) and water purification (WP) has become increasingly prominent. Here, we chose DLB as a case study area, applied spatial continuous wavelet transform and wavelet coherence analysis, characterized the ES trade-off intensity by wavelet coherence coefficient, and explored the influence of land use type, conflict and intensity on the trade-off between GP and WP. The results showed that the trade-off intensity between GP and WP in the DLB in 2015 had alleviated compared with 2005, and the coherence coefficient had increased while maitaining the negative value. The trade-off intensity was the strongest in farmland and forest land, and weaker in grassland and water body. The impact of land use conflict mainly depended on the specific types of land use conversions. For the transects where land use conversions mainly appeared between farmland and forest land, the intensification of land use conflict would increase the trade-off intensity (2005: R2 = 0.3862, p < 0.05; 2015: R2 = 0.2543, p < 0.05), while for the transects dominated by conversions to water body and grassland, stronger land use conflicts would reduce the trade-off intensity (2005: R2 = 0.3438, p < 0.05; 2015: R2 = 0.2668, p < 0.05). The impact of land use intensity was also realized through the land use type, with lower interpretation ratio. In addition, the wavelet coherence analysis showed that the scale about 10.51 km was the most suitable for exploring the trade-off between GP and WP, which was equivalent to the scale of the secondary watershed in the study area.

Health Service Needs from a Household Perspective: An Empirical Study in Rural Empty Nest Families in Sinan and Dangyang, China.

This study aimed to explore the health service needs of empty nest families from a household perspective. A multistage random sampling strategy was conducted to select 1606 individuals in 803 empty nest households in this study. A questionnaire was used to ask each individual about their health service needs in each household. The consistency rate was calculated based on their consistent answers to the questionnaire. We used a collective household model to analyze individuals' public health service needs on the family level. According to the results, individuals' consistency rates of health service needs in empty nest households, such as diagnosis and treatment service (H1), chronic disease management service (H2), telemedicine care (H3), physical examination service (H4), health education service (H5), mental healthcare (H6), and traditional Chinese medicine service (H7) were 40.30%, 89.13%, 98.85%, 58.93%, 57.95%, 72.84%, and 63.40%, respectively. Therefore, family-level health service needs could be studied from a family level. Health service needs of H1, H3, H4, H5, and H7 for individuals in empty nest households have significant correlations with each other (r = 0.404, 0.177, 0.286, 0.265, 0.220, p < 0.001). This will be helpful for health management in primary care in rural China; the concordance will alleviate the pressure of primary care and increase the effectiveness of doctor-patient communication. Health service needs in empty nest households who took individuals' public needs as household needs (n = 746) included the H4 (43.3%) and H5 (24.9%) and were always with a male householder (94.0%) or at least one had chronic diseases (82.4%). Health service needs in empty nest households that considered one member's needs as household needs (n = 46) included the H1 (56.5%), H4 (65.2%), H5 (63.0%), and H7 (45.7%), and the member would be the householder of the family (90.5%) or had a disease within two weeks (100.0%). In conclusion, family members' roles and health status play an important role in health service needs in empty nest households. Additionally, physical examination and health education services are the two health services that are most needed by empty nest households, and are suitable for delivering within a household unit.

Performance and Sociodemographic Determinants of Excess Outpatient Demand of Rural Residents in China: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Excess healthcare utilization is rapidly rising in rural China. This study focused on excess outpatient demand (EOD) and aimed to measure its performance and sociodemographic determinants among China's rural residents. A total of 1290 residents from four counties in central China were enrolled via multistage cluster random sampling. EOD is the condition in which the level of hospital a patient chooses is higher than the indicated level in the governmental guide. A multilevel logistic regression was used to examine the sociodemographic determinants of EOD. Residents with EOD accounted for 85.83%. The risk of EOD was 51.17% and value was 5.69. The value of EOD in diseases was higher than that in symptoms (t = -21.498, p < 0.001). Age (OR = 0.489), educational level (OR = 1.986) and hospital distance difference (OR = 0.259) were the main sociodemographic determinants of EOD. Excess outpatient demand was evident in rural China, but extreme conditions were rare. Results revealed that age, educational level and hospital distance were the main sociodemographic determinants of EOD. The capacity of primary healthcare institutions, universality of common disease judgement and understanding of institution's scope of disease curing capabilities of residents should be improved to reduce EOD.

miR-449c-5p availability is antagonized by circ-NOTCH1 for MYC-induced NOTCH1 upregulation as well as tumor metastasis and stemness in gastric cancer.

Gastric cancer (GC), identified as the most common gastrointestinal malignancy, is one of the primary causes of cancer-related mortality in the world. Although surgery and chemotherapy for GC treatment have been improved, the 5-year overall survival rate is still unsatisfactory. Circ-NOTCH1 is a novel circular RNA derived from its host gene NOTCH1, and has not been studied in any cancers. Here we explored the potential role and mediatory mechanism of circ-NOTCH1 in GC. In this study, circ-NOTCH1 exhibited increased expression in GC tissues and cells. Suppression of circ-NOTCH1 inhibited cell migration, invasion, tumor spheroids number, and side population ratio. Circ-NOTCH1 also promoted GC growth and metastasis in vivo. Additionally, it was found that circ-NOTCH1 could bind to miR-449c-5p. Circ-NOTCH1 promoted metastasis and stemness in GC through sponging miR-449c-5p. Subsequently, MYC was identified as a downstream gene of miR-449c-5p. MYC could bind to the promoter of NOTCH1 to regulate GC progression. Furthermore, rescue assays demonstrated that NOTCH1 knockdown reversed the effects of overexpression of MYC in metastasis and stemness in AGS cells/sh-circNOTCH1. Above findings explained that circ-NOTCH1 promoted metastasis and stemness in GC by targeting miR-449c-5p/MYC/NOTCH1 axis, suggesting the possibility of circ-NOTCH1 as a therapeutic marker for GC.

An Exploration of Medical Education in Central and Southern China: Measuring the Professional Competence of Clinical Undergraduates.

BACKGROUND: The cultivation and assessment of the professional competence of clinical undergraduates is essential to medical education. This study aimed to construct a scale to evaluate the professional competence of clinical undergraduates as well as its determinants. METHODS: The competence scale was developed on the basis of four medical education standards, the literature, and expert interviews. A total of 288 undergraduates from two types of medical colleges in central and southeastern China were selected by a multistage sampling strategy. Factor analysis, correlation analysis, and internal consistency reliability were used to verify the validity and reliability of the scale. RESULTS: A scale consisting of eight factors with 51 items was determined for factor analysis. Cronbach'α coefficients among the eight dimensions were over 0.800, with mean scores of 1.76, 1.38, 1.92, 1.54, 1.77, 1.25, 1.60, and 2.34. Clinical undergraduates with above average academic grades achieved a higher score in essential clinical knowledge (p < 0.05) and better professionalism was reported among females (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The competence scale showed excellent reliability and validity. Respondents in this study showed a moderate level of professional competence. This study could be a reference for medical educators and policy makers in order to improve medical education standards for clinical undergraduates in China and other countries with similar settings.

Direct neuronal reprogramming of olfactory ensheathing cells for CNS repair.

Direct conversion of readily available non-neural cells from patients into induced neurons holds great promise for neurological disease modeling and cell-based therapy. Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) is a unique population of glia in olfactory nervous system. Based on the regeneration-promoting properties and the relative clinical accessibility, OECs are attracting increasing attention from neuroscientists as potential therapeutic agents for use in neural repair. Here, we report that OECs can be directly, rapidly and efficiently reprogrammed into neuronal cells by the single transcription factor Neurogenin 2 (NGN2). These induced cells exhibit typical neuronal morphologies, express multiple neuron-specific markers, produce action potentials, and form functional synapses. Genome-wide RNA-sequencing analysis shows that the transcriptome profile of OECs is effectively reprogrammed towards that of neuronal lineage. Importantly, these OEC-derived induced neurons survive and mature after transplantation into adult mouse spinal cords. Taken together, our study provides a direct and efficient strategy to quickly obtain neuronal cells from adult OECs, suggestive of promising potential for personalized disease modeling and cell replacement-mediated therapeutic approaches to neurological disorders.

Inhibition of Glioma Development by ASCL1-Mediated Direct Neuronal Reprogramming.

Direct conversion of non-neural cells into induced neurons holds great promise for brain repair. As the most common malignant tumor in the central nervous system, glioma is currently incurable due to its exponential growth and invasive behavior. Given that neurons are irreversible postmitotic cells, reprogramming glioma cells into terminally differentiated neuron-like cells represents a potential approach to inhibit brain tumor development. We here show that human glioma cells can be directly, rapidly and efficiently reprogrammed into terminally differentiated neuron-like cells by the single transcription factor ASCL1 (Achaete-scute complex-like 1, also known as MASH1). These induced cells exhibit typical neuron-like morphology and express multiple neuron-specific markers. Importantly, ASCL1-mediated neuronal reprogramming drives human glioma cells to exit the cell cycle and results in dramatic inhibition of proliferation, both in vitro and in vivo. Taken together, this proof-of-principle study demonstrates a potential strategy for impeding brain tumor development by ASCL1-induced direct neuronal reprogramming.

Conditional ablation of reactive astrocytes to dissect their roles in spinal cord injury and repair.

Astrocytes become reactive in response to spinal cord injury (SCI) and ultimately form a histologically apparent glial scar at the lesion site. It is controversial whether astrocytic scar is detrimental or beneficial to the axonal regeneration and SCI repair. Therefore, much effort has focused on understanding the functions of reactive astrocytes. Here, we used a lentivirus-mediated herpes simplex thymidine kinase/ganciclovir (HSVtk/GCV) system to selectively kill scar-forming reactive proliferating astrocytes. The suicide gene expression was regulated by human glial fibrillary acidic protein (hGFAP) promoter, which is active primarily in astrocytes. Conditional ablation of reactive astrocytes in a mouse SCI model with crush injury impeded glial scar formation and resulted in widespread infiltration of inflammatory cells, increased neuronal loss, and severe tissue degeneration, which ultimately led to the failure of spontaneous functional recovery. These results suggest that reactive proliferating astrocytes play key roles in the healing process after SCI, shedding light on the potential benefit for the repair after central nervous system (CNS) injury.

Region-Restrict Astrocytes Exhibit Heterogeneous Susceptibility to Neuronal Reprogramming.

The adult CNS has poor ability to replace degenerated neurons following injury or disease. Recently, direct reprogramming of astrocytes into induced neurons has been proposed as an innovative strategy toward CNS repair. As a cell population that shows high diversity on physiological properties and functions depending on their spatiotemporal distribution, however, whether the astrocyte heterogeneity affect neuronal reprogramming is not clear. Here, we show that astrocytes derived from cortex, cerebellum, and spinal cord exhibit biological heterogeneity and possess distinct susceptibility to transcription factor-induced neuronal reprogramming. The heterogeneous expression level of NOTCH1 signaling in the different CNS regions-derived astrocytes is shown to be responsible for the neuronal reprogramming diversity. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that region-restricted astrocytes reveal different intrinsic limitation of the response to neuronal reprogramming.

Identification of characteristic genes distinguishing neural stem cells from astrocytes.

BACKGROUND: Neural stem cells (NSCs) have unique biological characteristics such as continuous proliferation and multipotential differentiation, providing a possible method for restoration of central nervous system (CNS) function after injury or disease. NSCs and astrocytes share many similar biological properties including cell morphology and molecular expression and can trans-differentiate into each other under certain conditions. However, characteristic genes specifically expressed by NSCs have not been well described. METHODS: To provide insights into the characteristic expression of NSCs, bioinformatics analysis of two microarrays of mouse NSCs and astrocytes was performed. Compared to astrocytes, the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in NSCs were identified and annotated by GO, KEGG and GSEA analysis, respectively. Then key genes were screened by protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and modules analysis, and were verified using multiple high-throughput sequencing resources. Finally, the expression difference between the two cell types was confirmed by Real-time Quantitative PCR (qPCR), western blotting and immunochemical analysis. RESULTS: In the present study, 282 and 250 NSC-enriched genes from two microarrays were identified and annotated respectively, and the 77 overlapping DEGs were then selected. From the PPI network 24 key genes in three modules were screened out. Importantly, sequencing data of tissues showed that these 24 key genes tended to be highly expressed in NSCs compared with astrocytes. Furthermore, qPCR and western blot analysis of cultured NSCs and astrocytes showed two genes (KIF2C and TOP2A) were not only differentially expressed in RNA level but also at the protein level. Importantly, the NSC-specific genes KIF2C and TOP2A were validated by immunohistochemistry in vivo. CONCLUSION: In present study, we identified 2 hub genes (KIF2C and TOP2A) that might serve as potential biomarkers for distinguishing NSCs from astrocytes, contributing to our comprehensive understanding of the biological properties and functions of NSCs.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs use and risk of Parkinson disease: A dose-response meta-analysis.

Previous studies have indicated that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) use is associated with Parkinson disease risk, but presented controversial results.Medline, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Database were searched update to November 2017. Key data were extracted from eligible studies. A dose-response meta-analysis was conducted for synthesizing data from eligible studies.Fifteen eligible studies were included in this meta-analysis. NSAIDs use was not associated with Parkinson disease risk [relevant risk (RR): 0.06; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.91-1.02]. Subgroup analysis showed that aspirin use (RR: 1.14; 95% CI, 0.98-1.30) or ibuprofen use (RR: 1.01; 95% CI, 0.88-1.17) was not associated with Parkinson disease risk; however, the use of non-aspirin NSAIDs was significantly associated with Parkinson disease risk (RR:0.91; 95% CI, 0.84-0.99). Furthermore, NSAIDs use was not associated with the risk of Parkinson disease in female (RR: 0.99; 95% CI, 0.83-1.17) and male (RR: 1.01; 95% CI, 0.88-1.16). In addition, a dose-response showed per 1 number of prescription incremental increase in NSAIDs use was not associated with the risk of Parkinson disease (RR: 0.96; 95% CI, 0.91-1.02), per 1 year of duration of NSAIDs use incremental increase was not associated with the risk of Parkinson disease (RR: 0.98; 95% CI, 0.92-1.03), and per 1 dosage of NSAIDs use incremental increase was not associated with the risk of Parkinson disease (RR: 0.98; 95% CI, 0.95-1.02).NSAIDs use was not associated with the risk of Parkinson disease. The potency and the cumulative NSAIDs use did not play critical roles.

[Astrocytes as therapeutic targets after spinal cord injury].

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.