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Papers of the Week


2019 Apr


Ann Neurosci


26


2

Folic Acid Modulates Matrix Metalloproteinase-9 Expression Following Spinal Cord Injury.

Authors

Miranpuri GS, Nguyen J, Moreno N, Yutuc NA, Kim J, Buttar S, Brown GR, Sauer SE, Singh CK, Kumar S, Resnick DK
Ann Neurosci. 2019 Apr; 26(2):60-65.
PMID: 31975775.

Abstract

Treatment of spinal cord injury (SCI) induced neuropathic pain (NP) proves to be extremely clinically challenging as the mechanism behind SCINP is poorly understood. Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) is largely responsible for the early disruption of the blood spinal cord barrier. This system initiates macrophage infiltration and degradation of myelin, which plays a pivotal role in how NP occurs. In a recent study, we demonstrated that folic acid (FA) treatment to cSCI rats reduced NP and improved functional recovery by repressing MMP-2 expression. We hypothesize that MMP-2 expression is suppressed because FA actively methylates the DNA sequence that encodes for the MMP-2 protein. However, modulation of MMP-2 expression for alleviation of NP is only pertinent to the mid- to late-phase of injury. Therefore, we need to explore alternate therapeutic methods to target the early- to mid-phase of injury to wholly alleviate NP.