Fig. 1.

MT promotes regenerative sprouting of scratch-injured DRG explants in vitro. Immunostaining of DRG explants 16 h after scratch injury was performed. The neuronal cytoskeleton of DRG neurons was labeled using the neurofilament antibody SMI312 (a, b, c, and d), while Nuclear yellow was used to identify nuclei (c and d). Results indicate that a more extensive regenerative axonal sprouting was observed in the explants receiving MT treatment (c and d) compared to those receiving vehicle treatment (a and b). The injury tract (indicated by arrow) also appeared to be substantially wider in the explants receiving vehicle treatment compared to those receiving MT-IIA treatment. In some DRG explant cultures, it was found that 30-min pre-treatment with PD98059 (inhibitor of MAPK signaling pathways) or RAP (megalin antagonist) blocked the pro-regenerative effect of MT (marked by arrow in e and f) (scale bar = 200 μm)