Tapia VS, Herrera‐Rojas M, Larrain J. JAK-STAT pathway activation in response to spinal cord injury in regenerative and non-regenerative stages of
Xenopus laevis.
Regeneration (Oxf) 2017;
4:21-35. [PMID:
28316792 PMCID:
PMC5350081 DOI:
10.1002/reg2.74]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2016] [Revised: 01/17/2017] [Accepted: 01/18/2017] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Xenopus laevis tadpoles can regenerate the spinal cord after injury but this capability is lost during metamorphosis. Comparative studies between pre-metamorphic and metamorphic Xenopus stages can aid towards understanding the molecular mechanisms of spinal cord regeneration. Analysis of a previous transcriptome-wide study suggests that, in response to injury, the JAK-STAT pathway is differentially activated in regenerative and non-regenerative stages. We characterized the activation of the JAK-STAT pathway and found that regenerative tadpoles have an early and transient activation. In contrast, the non-regenerative stages have a delayed and sustained activation of the pathway. We found that STAT3 is activated in response to injury mainly in Sox2/3+ ependymal cells, motoneurons and sensory neurons. Finally, to study the role of temporal activation we generated a transgenic line to express a constitutively active version of STAT3. The sustained activation of the JAK-STAT pathway in regenerative tadpoles reduced the expression of pro-neurogenic genes normally upregulated in response to spinal cord injury, suggesting that activation of the JAK-STAT pathway modulates the fate of neural progenitors.
Collapse