Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 26, 2026

Identifying Microglia and Peripheral Infiltrating Macrophages in the Injured Spinal Cords Using Flow Cytometry
Published on: June 24, 2025
The role of autophagy in spinal cord injury
Haruo Kanno1, Hiroshi Ozawa, Akira Sekiguchi
1Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan. kanno-h@isis.ocn.ne.jp
Abstract:
Previous studies have indicated that autophagy has an important function, not only in many neurodegenerative diseases, but also in traumatic and ischemic brain injury. However, no study has previously shown the contribution of autophagy to neural tissue damage after spinal cord injury. We recently investigated the alterations in Beclin 1 expression and the involvement of autophagy and autophagic cell death after spinal cord injury using a spinal cord hemisection model in mice. The results showed that the expression of Beclin 1 dramatically increased in the damaged neural tissue and induced autophagic cell death after a spinal cord injury. These observations suggested that the increased expression of Beclin 1 activates autophagy, while mediating a novel cell death mechanism at the lesion site in response to spinal cord injury. Here we discuss several unsolved issues and review the evidence in related articles regarding the role of autophagy and its contribution to the mechanism of cell death in spinal cord injury.
Related Concept Videos
Secondary Spinal Cord Injury llI: Pathophysiology
Neurogenesis and Regeneration of Nervous Tissue
Spinal Cord Injury ll: Pathophysiology
Autophagy
An autophagic pathway consists of a series of signaling events activated in response to diverse stress and physiological conditions such as food deprivation,...
Cellular Injury V: Apoptosis and Autophagy
