Abstract
Peripheral nerve injuries lead to significant changes in the dorsal root ganglia, where the cell bodies of the damaged axons are located. The sensory neurons and the surrounding satellite cells rearrange the composition of the intracellular organelles to enhance their plasticity for adaptation to changing conditions and response to injury. Meanwhile, satellite cells acquire phagocytic properties and work with macrophages to eliminate degenerated neurons. These structural and functional changes are not identical in all injury types. Understanding the cellular response, which varies according to the type of injury involved, is essential in determining the optimal method of treatment. In this research, we investigated the numerical and morphological changes in primary sensory neurons and satellite cells in the dorsal root ganglion 30 days following chronic compression, crush, and transection injuries using stereology, high-resolution light microscopy, immunohistochemistry, and behavioral analysis techniques. Electron microscopic methods were employed to evaluate fine structural alterations in cells. Stereological evaluations revealed no statistically significant difference in terms of mean sensory neuron numbers (p > 0.05), although a significant decrease was observed in sensory neuron volumes in the transection and crush injury groups (p < 0.05). Active caspase-3 immunopositivity increased in the injury groups compared to the sham group (p < 0.05). While crush injury led to desensitization, chronic compression injury caused thermal hyperalgesia. Macrophage infiltrations were observed in all injury types. Electron microscopic results revealed that the chromatolysis response was triggered in the sensory neuron bodies from the transection injury group. An increase in organelle density was observed in the perikaryon of sensory neurons after crush-type injury. This indicates the presence of a more active regeneration process in crush-type injury than in other types. The effect of chronic compression injury is more devastating than that of crush-type injury, and the edema caused by compression significantly inhibits the regeneration process.
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This study was funded by the Project Management Office of Ondokuz Mayıs University (Suleyman Kaplan) (PYO.TIP.1904.20.006).
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B.D. conceived and designed the study, performed the experiment, and analyzed the data under the supervision of S.K. The funding acquisition and administered all stages of the project were managed by S.K. The authors of this work contributed towards the interpretation of findings from this study, had a role in drafting the article and revising it critically for its intellectual content, and gave their final approval for this version of the paper to be published.
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Delibaş, B., Kaplan, S. The histomorphological and stereological assessment of rat dorsal root ganglion tissues after various types of sciatic nerve injury. Histochem Cell Biol 161, 145–163 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00418-023-02242-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00418-023-02242-0