Neural Regeneration Research ›› 2014, Vol. 9 ›› Issue (24): 2205-2210.doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.147954

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Melatonin lowers edema after spinal cord injury

Cheng Li 1, Xiao Chen 1, Suchi Qiao 1, Xinwei Liu 2, Chang Liu 1, Degang Zhu 1, Jiacan Su 1, Zhiwei Wang 1   

  1. 1 Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Changhai Hospital, the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China
    2 Laboratory of Severe and War-Related Trauma Center, General Hospital of Shenyang Military Area Command of Chinese PLA, Shenyang,
    Liaoning Province, China
  • Received:2014-11-23 Online:2014-12-25 Published:2014-12-25
  • Contact: Zhiwei Wang, M.D., Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Changhai Hospital, the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China, wangzhiweils@126.com.
  • Supported by:

    This study was supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant, No. 2014M552692.

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Abstract:

Melatonin has been shown to diminish edema in rats. Melatonin can be used to treat spinal cord injury. This study presumed that melatonin could relieve spinal cord edema and examined how it might act. Our experiments found that melatonin (100 mg/kg, i.p.) could reduce the water content of the spinal cord, and suppress the expression of aquaporin-4 and glial fibrillary acidic protein after spinal cord injury. This suggests that the mechanism by which melatonin alleviates the damage to the spinal cord by edema might be related to the expression of aquaporin-4 and glial fibrillary acidic protein.

Key words: nerve regeneration, spinal cord injury, melatonin, edema, aquaporin, glial fibrillary acidic protein, immunohistochemistry, western blot assay, neural regeneration