Figure 1. Wnt ligands expression in the spinal cord of adult rats following SCI.

All Wnt ligands except for Wnt3, 3a, 8a and 8b were constitutively expressed in the non-injured adult spinal cord. After SCI, 3 main patterns of Wnt ligand expression were observed: i) No change or slight reduction (Wnt7a and 10a); ii) early induction (Wnt1, 2a, 2b, 7b, 10b, 15 and 16); and iii) late induction (Wnt4, 5a, 5b, 6, 9 and 11). All analyses were performed using total RNA samples isolated from a 1 cm long fragment of the spinal cord from non-lesioned control animals (C) and fragments containing the wound from contused animals at different times post-injury (6 and 24 hpi and 3, 7, 14 and 28 dpi). Expression of rat Wnt ligand genes was assessed by qRT-PCR using specific primers (Table 1 and [47]) and normalized to ribosomal 18S expression. Values for each experimental group and day are expressed as mean ± SEM, n = 3. Each animal/sample (“n”) was measured in triplicate in two occasions (2 independent technical triplicates, 6 measurements per sample). *p<0.05 compared with C.