Author Correction: Modulation of the Neuregulin 1/ErbB system after skeletal muscle denervation and reinnervation.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Critical analysis of the value of the rabbit median nerve model for biomedical research on peripheral nerve grafts.

The rabbit has been proposed to represent an animal model that allows studying peripheral nerve regeneration across extended gap lengths. We describe here our experiences with the rabbit median nerve model and the obstacles it comes along with. This short communication is meant to inform the community and to prevent other researcher from investing time and animal lives in a model with low translational power.

The Median Nerve Injury Model in Pre-clinical Research - A Critical Review on Benefits and Limitations.

The successful introduction of innovative treatment strategies into clinical practise strongly depends on the availability of effective experimental models and their reliable pre-clinical assessment. Considering pre-clinical research for peripheral nerve repair and reconstruction, the far most used nerve regeneration model in the last decades is the sciatic nerve injury and repair model. More recently, the use of the median nerve injury and repair model has gained increasing attention due to some significant advantages it provides compared to sciatic nerve injury. Outstanding advantages are the availability of reliable behavioural tests for assessing posttraumatic voluntary motor recovery and a much lower impact on the animal wellbeing. In this article, the potential application of the median nerve injury and repair model in pre-clinical research is reviewed. In addition, we provide a synthetic overview of a variety of methods that can be applied in this model for nerve regeneration assessment. This article is aimed at helping researchers in adequately adopting this in vivo model for pre-clinical evaluation of peripheral nerve reconstruction as well as for interpreting the results in a translational perspective.

Modulation of the Neuregulin 1/ErbB system after skeletal muscle denervation and reinnervation.

Neuregulin 1 (NRG1) is a growth factor produced by both peripheral nerves and skeletal muscle. In muscle, it regulates neuromuscular junction gene expression, acetylcholine receptor number, muscle homeostasis and satellite cell survival. NRG1 signalling is mediated by the tyrosine kinase receptors ErbB3 and ErbB4 and their co-receptors ErbB1 and ErbB2. The NRG1/ErbB system is well studied in nerve tissue after injury, but little is known about this system in skeletal muscle after denervation/reinnervation processes. Here, we performed a detailed time-course expression analysis of several NRG1 isoforms and ErbB receptors in the rat superficial digitorum flexor muscle after three types of median nerve injuries of different severities. We found that ErbB receptor expression was correlated with the innervated state of the muscle, with upregulation of ErbB2 clearly associated with the denervation state. Interestingly, the NRG1 isoforms were differently regulated depending on the nerve injury type, leading to the hypothesis that both the NRG1α and NRG1ß isoforms play a key role in the muscle reaction to injury. Indeed, in vitro experiments with C2C12 atrophic myotubes revealed that both NRG1α and NRG1ß treatment influences the best-known atrophic pathways, suggesting that NRG1 might play an anti-atrophic role.

Soluble Neuregulin1 Down-Regulates Myelination Genes in Schwann Cells.

Peripheral nerves are characterised by the ability to regenerate after injury. Schwann cell activity is fundamental for all steps of peripheral nerve regeneration: immediately after injury they de-differentiate, remove myelin debris, proliferate and repopulate the injured nerve. Soluble Neuregulin1 (NRG1) is a growth factor that is strongly up-regulated and released by Schwann cells immediately after nerve injury. To identify the genes regulated in Schwann cells by soluble NRG1, we performed deep RNA sequencing to generate a transcriptome database and identify all the genes regulated following 6 h stimulation of primary adult rat Schwann cells with soluble recombinant NRG1. Interestingly, the gene ontology analysis of the transcriptome reveals that NRG1 regulates genes belonging to categories that are regulated in the peripheral nerve immediately after an injury. In particular, NRG1 strongly inhibits the expression of genes involved in myelination and in glial cell differentiation, suggesting that NRG1 might be involved in the de-differentiation (or "trans-differentiation") process of Schwann cells from a myelinating to a repair phenotype. Moreover, NRG1 inhibits genes involved in the apoptotic process, and up-regulates genes positively regulating the ribosomal RNA processing, thus suggesting that NRG1 might promote cell survival and stimulate new protein expression. This in vitro transcriptome analysis demonstrates that in Schwann cells NRG1 drives the expression of several genes which partially overlap with genes regulated in vivo after peripheral nerve injury, underlying the pivotal role of NRG1 in the first steps of the nerve regeneration process.

Combined Influence of Gelatin Fibre Topography and Growth Factors on Cultured Dorsal Root Ganglia Neurons.

Nerve guidance channels facilitate nerve regeneration and represent an attractive alternative to nerve graft. Actually, nano- and microstructured biomaterials for nerve reconstruction have gained much attention, thanks to recent discoveries about topography effects on cell behavior and morphology. Electrospun fibres have been proposed as filler or structural component for nerve guidance channels, principally due to their similarity with extracellular matrices which facilitate nerve regeneration. Among several tested biomaterials, gelatin has been used to prepare fibres able to support Schwann cell migration and neurite outgrowth. In this work, the effects of gelatin fibre size on axon elongation and Schwann cell migration have been tested using dorsal root ganglia cultures. Moreover, we analyzed how fibres might affect the expression of specific neuronal subtype markers in sensory neuron cultures and how the combined effect of substrate and biological cues affects neurite growth and gene expression. Data show that fibre topography differentially affects both neurite outgrowth and gene expression and suggest that fibre size and topography associated to specific growth factor exposure might be used to select neuron subpopulations and favor the axonal growth of specific neurons. Anat Rec, 301:1668-1677, 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Myocardial ischemia/reperfusion upregulates the transcription of the Neuregulin1 receptor ErbB3, but only postconditioning preserves protein translation: Role in oxidative stress.

BACKGROUND: Neuregulin1 (Nrg1) and its receptors ErbB are crucial for heart development and for adult heart structural maintenance and function and Nrg1 has been proposed for heart failure treatment. Infarct size is the major determinant of heart failure and the mechanism of action and the role of each ErbB receptor remain obscure, especially in the post-ischemic myocardium. We hypothesized that Nrg1 and ErbB are affected at transcriptional level early after ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, and that the protective postconditioning procedure (PostC, brief cycles of ischemia/reperfusion carried out after a sustained ischemia) can influence this pathway. METHODS AND RESULTS: The Langendorff's heart was used as an ex-vivo model to mimic an I/R injury in the whole rat heart; after 30min of ischemia and 2h of reperfusion, with or without PostC, Nrg1 and ErbB expression were analysed by quantitative real-time PCR and Western blot. While no changes occur for ErbB2, ErbB4 and Nrg1, an increase of ErbB3 expression occurs after I/R injury, with and without PostC. However, I/R reduces ErbB3 protein, whereas PostC preserves it. An in vitro analysis with H9c2 cells exposed to redox-stress indicated that the transient over-expression of ErbB3 alone is able to increase cell survival (MTT assay), limiting mitochondrial dysfunction (JC-1 probe) and apoptotic signals (Bax/Bcl-2 ratio). CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests ErbB3 as a protective factor against death pathways activated by redox stress and supports an involvement of this receptor in the pro-survival responses.

Nanotechnology versus stem cell engineering: in vitro comparison of neurite inductive potentials.

PURPOSE: Innovative nerve conduits for peripheral nerve reconstruction are needed in order to specifically support peripheral nerve regeneration (PNR) whenever nerve autotransplantation is not an option. Specific support of PNR could be achieved by neurotrophic factor delivery within the nerve conduits via nanotechnology or stem cell engineering and transplantation. METHODS: Here, we comparatively investigated the bioactivity of selected neurotrophic factors conjugated to iron oxide nanoparticles (np-NTFs) and of bone marrow-derived stem cells genetically engineered to overexpress those neurotrophic factors (NTF-BMSCs). The neurite outgrowth inductive activity was monitored in culture systems of adult and neonatal rat sensory dorsal root ganglion neurons as well as in the cell line from rat pheochromocytoma (PC-12) cell sympathetic culture model system. RESULTS: We demonstrate that np-NTFs reliably support numeric neurite outgrowth in all utilized culture models. In some aspects, especially with regard to their long-term bioactivity, np-NTFs are even superior to free NTFs. Engineered NTF-BMSCs proved to be less effective in induction of sensory neurite outgrowth but demonstrated an increased bioactivity in the PC-12 cell culture system. In contrast, primary nontransfected BMSCs were as effective as np-NTFs in sensory neurite induction and demonstrated an impairment of neuronal differentiation in the PC-12 cell system. CONCLUSION: Our results evidence that nanotechnology as used in our setup is superior over stem cell engineering when it comes to in vitro models for PNR. Furthermore, np-NTFs can easily be suspended in regenerative hydrogel matrix and could be delivered that way to nerve conduits for future in vivo studies and medical application.

Characterization of glial cell models and in vitro manipulation of the neuregulin1/ErbB system.

The neuregulin1/ErbB system plays an important role in Schwann cell behavior both in normal and pathological conditions. Upon investigation of the expression of the neuregulin1/ErbB system in vitro, we explored the possibility to manipulate the system in order to increase the migration of Schwann cells, that play a fundamental role in the peripheral nerve regeneration. Comparison of primary cells and stable cell lines shows that both primary olfactory bulb ensheathing cells and a corresponding cell line express ErbB1-ErbB2 and neuregulin1, and that both primary Schwann cells and a corresponding cell line express ErbB2-ErbB3, while only primary Schwann cells express neuregulin1. To interfere with the neuregulin1/ErbB system, the soluble extracellular domain of the neuregulin1 receptor ErbB4 (ecto-ErbB4) was expressed in vitro in the neuregulin1 expressing cell line, and an unexpected increase in cell motility was observed. In vitro experiments suggest that the back signaling mediated by the transmembrane neuregulin1 plays a role in the migratory activity induced by ecto-ErbB4. These results indicate that ecto-ErbB4 could be used in vivo as a tool to manipulate the neuregulin1/ErbB system.