Research reportDown regulation of lncSCIR1 after spinal cord contusion injury in rat

- lncSCIR1 is down regulated after spinal cord contusion injury in rat.
- lncSCIR1 knockdown promotes astrocyte proliferation and migration.
- lncSCIR1 downregulation is associated with the expression changes of four mRNAs after SCI.

Extensive changes occur at transcriptional level after traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). In this study, we performed a large scale screening of expression changes of long (>200 nt) RNA transcripts including both coding and non-coding RNA species in a rat contusion SCI model. We validated significant down-regulation of one long non-coding RNA (lncSCIR1) at 1, 4, and 7 days postinjury. lncSCIR1 knockdown promoted astrocyte proliferation and migration in vitro. We further validated the strong association between lncSCIR1 knock down and the expression changes of four mRNAs after injury. Our data indicated that lncSCIR1 down-regulation might play a detrimental role in the pathophysiology of traumatic SCI and thereby provided new insights into the studies of potential therapeutic targets for traumatic central nervous system (CNS) injuries.