[Experimental study on promotion of neurotropic reinnervation with chemically extracted acellular nerve allograft]
Guanjun Wang1, Shibi Lu, Zhengda Kuang
1Department of Spine Surgery, General Hospital of Armed Police Forces, Beijing 100039, PR China.
Objective:
To investigate the promotion effect of neurotropic reinnervation with chemically extracted acellular nerve allograft.
Methods:
The sciatic nerves of 5 healthy adult SD rats, regardless of gender and weighing 270-300 g, were collected to prepare chemically extracted acellular nerve allograft. Eighteen healthy adult Wistar rats, regardless of gender and weighing 300-320 g, were made the model of left sciatic nerve defect (10 mm) and randomly divided into 2 groups: autograft (control group, n = 9) and allograft group (experimental group, n = 9). The defects were bridged by acellular nerve allograft in experimental group and by autograft by turning over the proximal and distal ends of the nerve in control group. At 3 months after transplantation, dorsal root ganglion (DRG) resection operation was performed in 6 rats of 2 groups. At 3 weeks after operation, the sural nerves were harvested to calculate the misdirection rate of nerve fibers with pathological staining and compute-assisted image analysis. Cholinesterase staining and carbonic anhydrase staining were performed in the sural nerve of 3 rats that did not undergo DRG resection at 3 months.
Results:
The results of cholinesterase staining and carbonic anhydrase staining showed that experimental group had less brown granules and more black granules than control group. After DRG resection, count of myelinated nerve fiber were 4 257 +/- 285 in the experimental group and 4 494 +/- 310 in the control group significant (P < 0.05). The misdirection rate was 2.27% +/- 0.28% and 7.65% +/- 0.68% in the experimental group and in the control group respectively, showing significant difference (P < 0.05).
Conclusion:
Chemically extracted acellular nerve allograft can not only act as a scaffold in the period of nerve defects repair, but markedly enhance the effects of neurotropic reinnervation.
