Spinal cord injury (SCI) treatment remains a major challenge. Spinal motor neurons (MNs) are seriously injured in the early stage after SCI, but this has not received sufficient attention. Oxidative stress is known to play a crucial role in SCI pathology. Our studies demonstrated that oxidative stress can cause severe damage to the cytoskeleton of spinal MNs. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) has been shown to have beneficial effects on SCI, but the mechanism remains unclear, and no study has investigated the effect of DHA on oxidative stress-induced spinal MN injury. Here, we investigated the effect of DHA on spinal MN injury through in vivo and in vitro experiments, focusing on the cytoskeleton. We found that DHA not only promoted spinal MN survival but, more importantly, alleviated the severe cytoskeletal destruction of these neurons induced by oxidative stress in vitro and in mice with SCI in vivo. In addition, the mechanisms involved were investigated and elucidated. These results not only suggested a beneficial role of DHA in spinal MN cytoskeletal destruction caused by oxidative stress and SCI but also indicated the important role of the spinal MN cytoskeleton in the recovery of motor function after SCI. Our study provides new insights for the formulation of SCI treatment.

中文翻译：

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减轻脊髓运动神经元的严重细胞骨架破坏：二十二碳六烯酸在脊髓损伤中的另一种作用

脊髓损伤（SCI）治疗仍然是一个重大挑战。脊髓运动神经元（MNs）在SCI后早期受到严重损伤，但这一点尚未得到足够的重视。众所周知，氧化应激在 SCI 病理学中发挥着至关重要的作用。我们的研究表明，氧化应激会对脊髓 MN 的细胞骨架造成严重损害。二十二碳六烯酸 (DHA) 已被证明对 SCI 具有有益作用，但其机制仍不清楚，也没有研究探讨 DHA 对氧化应激引起的脊髓 MN 损伤的影响。在这里，我们通过体内和体外实验研究了 DHA 对脊髓 MN 损伤的影响，重点关注细胞骨架。我们发现，DHA 不仅促进脊髓 MN 存活，更重要的是，减轻了体外和 SCI 小鼠体内氧化应激引起的这些神经元的严重细胞骨架破坏。此外，还研究并阐明了所涉及的机制。这些结果不仅表明DHA在氧化应激和SCI引起的脊髓MN细胞骨架破坏中发挥有益作用，而且表明脊髓MN细胞骨架在SCI后运动功能恢复中的重要作用。我们的研究为 SCI 治疗的制定提供了新的见解。