Treatment for peripheral nerve injury remains limited. The inherent differences between motor and sensory nerve fibers in peripheral nerves should be considered to improve the effects of clinical treatment of peripheral nerve injury. In this study, we investigated the differences in protein expression and ultrastructure between the cutaneous and muscular branches of the femoral nerve in rats. Our results suggest that the cutaneous branch of the femoral nerve mainly contains sensory nerve fibers and few motor nerve fibers; Correspondingly, many motor nerve fibers and few sensory nerve fibers were observed in the muscular branch of the femoral nerve, which indicate that two branches of femoral nerve are mixed nerve. The mean thickness of the myelin sheath and basement membrane of the medullated fibers in the muscular branch of the femoral nerve was greater than that of the cutaneous branch of the femoral nerve. However, the cutaneous branch has a larger G-ratio. Gene Ontology enrichment analysis revealed that the cellular component term extracellular space was the most highly enriched, and more genes were upregulated in the muscular branch of the femoral nerve. Meanwhile, the expression of key proteins were validated by Western Blot, and immunofluorescence targets the expression of key proteins, which is consistent with the enrichment analysis of Gene Ontology. In conclusion, inherent differences in protein expression and ultrastructure were observed between the cutaneous and muscular branches of the femoral nerve in rats, which should be considered in future studies on the treatment of peripheral nerve injuries.

周围神经损伤的治疗仍然有限。应考虑周围神经中运动神经纤维和感觉神经纤维之间的固有差异，以改善临床治疗周围神经损伤的效果。在这项研究中，我们调查了大鼠股神经的皮肤和肌肉分支之间蛋白质表达和超微结构的差异。我们的研究结果表明，股神经的皮肤分支主要包含感觉神经纤维，而运动神经纤维很少。相应地，在股神经的肌肉分支中观察到许多运动神经纤维和很少的感觉神经纤维，这表明股神经的两个分支是混合神经。股神经肌肉分支中髓质纤维的髓鞘和基底膜的平均厚度大于股神经皮肤分支的平均厚度。但是，皮肤分支的G比较大。基因本体论富集分析显示，细胞成分术语细胞外空间富集度最高，股神经肌肉分支中更多的基因上调。同时，通过Western Blot验证了关键蛋白的表达，免疫荧光靶向了关键蛋白的表达，这与基因本体论的富集分析是一致的。总之，在大鼠股神经的皮肤和肌肉分支之间观察到蛋白质表达和超微结构的固有差异，