Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Implication of cholinergic transmission in rat model of spinal cord injury: A potential therapeutic target

Hongzhe Liu, Lei Chang, Shuai Peng, Bin Liu, Mingyan Zhang, Xiangyang Liu

Department of Spine Surgery, The People's Hospital of Hunan Province, Changsha, Hunan 410005, China;

For correspondence:- Xiangyang Liu Email: xiangyangliu35@hotmail.com Tel:+8673184762686

Accepted: 16 March 2019 Published: 30 April 2019

Citation: Liu H, Chang L, Peng S, Liu B, Zhang M, Liu X. Implication of cholinergic transmission in rat model of spinal cord injury: A potential therapeutic target. Trop J Pharm Res 2019; 18(4):741-745 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v18i4.9

© 2019 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the involvement of cholinergic transmission in the etiology of spinal cord injury (SCI) in a rat model.

Methods: Male adult rats (Wistar) with body weight ranging from 200 to 250 g were equally allocated into 2 groups: test (SCI) and control (non-SCI). Clipping method was used to induce SCI. Thereafter, motor function was measured using rotarod. Each rat was sacrificed by decapitation, and the cortex was excised for use in the study of the involvement of cholinergic transmission in SCI using real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and western blot analysis (WBA).

Results: Significant upregulation in acetylcholine esterase (AChE) was observed in the cortex of SCI rats, relative to non-SCI rats (p < 0.005). Results from cholinergic receptor binding studies revealed significantly decreased maximum binding (Bmax) and dissociation constant (kd) values for muscarinic receptors in SCI rats, when compared to non-SCI rats. Moreover, the reduction in intensity of cholinergic receptors was significantly greater in the cerebral cortex of SCI group compared to non-SCI group.

Conclusion: The results of this study suggested that the reduction in cortical cholinergic transmission impairs motor functions in SCI, and plays a major role in motor deficits in SCI.

Keywords: Spinal cord injury, Cholinergic receptor, Acetylcholine esterase, Nicotinic receptor, Muscarinic receptor