Nogo Transgenic Mouse Models
Give Differing Results
on Regeneration Trials
•Of three
laboratories making mice lacking Nogo and/or NgR, two have found that these mice show enhanced
regeneration after spinal cord injury, and one has found no effect.
•The differences could be due to:
–Differences
in the locus and extent of genetic deletions.
–Differences
in experimental protocols.
–Failure
to differentiate between sprouting and regeneration.
•At a
minimum, the experiments using anti-Nogo antibodies reported more robust results and much of the
rationale rests on the ability of Nogo and other NgR agonists to inhibit axon elongation in tissue
culture, which is an
assay of growth cone collapse in embryonic neurons.