Histol Histopathol, Vol 36, Lin et al.

Regulation of inflammatory cytokines for spinal cord injury recovery

Sen Lin, Chang Xu, Jiaquan Lin, Hengshuo Hu, Chuanjie Zhang and Xifan Mei

Department of Orthopedic, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, PR China

Corresponding Author: Dr. Xifan Mei, Department of Orthopedic, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou 121000, PR China. e-mail: meixifan@jzmu.edu.cn

Summary. Spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most destructive traumatic diseases in human beings. The balance of inflammation in the microenvironment is crucial to the repair process of spinal cord injury. Inflammatory cytokines are direct mediators of local lesion inflammation and affect the prognosis of spinal cord injury to varying degrees. In spinal cord injury models, some inflammatory cytokines are beneficial for spinal cord repair, while others are harmful. A large number of animal studies have shown that local targeted administration can effectively regulate the secretion and delivery of inflammatory cytokines and promote the repair of spinal cord injury. In addition, many clinical studies have shown that drugs can promote the repair of spinal cord injury by regulating the content of inflammatory cytokines. However, topical administration affects only a small portion of inflammatory cytokines. In addition, different individuals have different inflammatory cytokine profiles during spinal cord injury. Therefore, future research should aim to develop a personalized local delivery therapeutic cocktail strategy to effectively and accurately regulate inflammation and obtain substantial functional recovery from spinal cord injury. Histol Histopathol 36, 137-142 (2021)

Key words: Spinal cord injury, Neuroinflammation, Inflammatory cytokines

DOI: 10.14670/HH-18-262