Expression and effects of macrophage migration inhibitory factor on spinal cord injury in mice / 局解手术学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the effects of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) on spinal cord injury. Methods C57BL/6 mice with injury at T9 ~T10 were taken as spinal cord injury ( SCI) model, and they were divided into the operated group and the sham oper-ated group. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect expression changes of MIF during 72 hours after operation. Reverse transcriptase-poly-merase chain reaction ( RT-PCR) was used to test changes of mRNA level. And double staining immunofluorescence techniques was used to show expressions of MIF and RhoA. Results Expression of MIF at acute stage (72 hours after injury) increased significantly. Results of RT-PCR showed that mRNA levels of MIF and RhoA both increased. There were statistical differences between the two groups (P<0. 05). Con-clusion In acute stage after SCI, MIF increased in the activated microglia. MIF accumulated in oligodendrocyte-like and astrocyte-like cells in injured spinal cord, which might contribute to inhibitory environment for regeneration. Moreover, mRNA level of MIF raised with the in-crease of RhoA mRNA level, which indicated the potential inhibition of MIF to axonal regeneration in CNS.