Time course analysis of sensory axon regeneration in vivo by directly tracing regenerating axons

The study focuses on directly measuring the regeneration of sensory axons after nerve injury, avoiding indirect methods like immunostaining. A method of in vivo electroporation of plasmid DNA encoding for enhanced green fluorescent protein into adult sensory neurons in the dorsal root ganglia provides a way to directly and specifically measure regenerating sensory axon lengths in whole-mount nerves. The researchers used a mouse model of sciatic nerve compression to observe and measure axon regeneration at different time points.

• 1
  Sensory axons regenerate slowly during the first day after injury but show steady growth from the second day onwards.
• 2
  The in vivo electroporation method used for labeling axons did not significantly affect cell apoptosis in the dorsal root ganglia.
• 3
  Tissue clearing techniques allowed for high-resolution 3D imaging of sensory neuron cell bodies and fluorescently labeled molecules within the DRGs.