Extensive glial apoptosis develops early after hypoxic-dysmetabolic insult to the neonatal rat spinal cord in vitro

The current etiopathogenesis of spinal cord injury comprises a growing number of nontraumatic causes, including ischemia generating hypoxic-dysmetabolic conditions. To mimic the metabolic disruption accompanying nontraumatic acute spinal cord injury and to characterize the type and dynamics of cell death in relation to locomotor network function, we used, as a model, the rat neonatal spinal cord preparation in vitro transiently (1 h) exposed to a “pathological medium” (PM), i.e. hypoxic/aglycemic solution containing toxic radicals. PM induced, in the ventrolateral spinal region, pyknosis already detectable after 2 h and stabilized 24 h later (affecting 55% of white matter cells). Glial cells were much more vulnerable than neurons. The amplitude of fictive locomotor patterns recorded from lumbar ventral roots was decreased and periodicity delayed by PM, in keeping with substantial preservation of neuronal networks. Repeated application of PM intensified such a functional impairment. White matter astrocytes and oligodendrocytes displayed nucleolytic pyknosis mainly dependent on caspase-mediated death processes as shown by active caspase-3 and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase biotin-dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) positivity. Expression of cleaved poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) (the active caspase-3 executor) also grew with similar time course. The caspase-3 inhibitor II counteracted, in a dose-dependent fashion, white matter pyknosis. Our results suggest the important involvement of apoptotic pathways in early glial cell death during the first 24 h after a hypoxic-dysmetabolic insult, associated with impaired locomotor output. Residual locomotor network activity together with distinctive apoptotic damage to white matter cells suggests that early protection against glial destruction may help to prevent subsequent damage extension responsible for paraplegia.