TY - JOUR T1 - Timing of splenectomy after acute spinal cord injury JF - eneuro JO - eNeuro DO - 10.1523/ENEURO.0440-21.2021 SP - ENEURO.0440-21.2021 AU - Feng Wu AU - Xiao-Hui Li AU - Min-Jie Gong AU - Jia-Qi An AU - Xiao-Yan Ding AU - Sheng-Li Huang Y1 - 2022/01/06 UR - http://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2022/01/06/ENEURO.0440-21.2021.abstract N2 - Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition. Splenectomy may play a protective role in the development of SCI. However, little is known about whether the timing of splenectomy affects the outcome after SCI. Investigation into splenectomy after SCI would provide insight into how the timing can be selected following SCI to improve neurological outcomes. Rats were randomized into a sham group, a nonsplenectomized group (NonSPX), four splenectomized groups with the surgery performed immediately, 6 h, 12 h, and 24 h after SCI (SPX0, SPX6, SPX12, and SPX24, respectively). Rats were subjected to severe contusive SCI at the level of the third thoracic vertebra. At different time points following SCI, BBB score was used to assess the recovery of injury. The animals in each group were randomly selected for tissue collection at day 3, 14, and 28 after surgery. Then, immunohistochemistry of immunologic cells was performed and inflammatory mediators were determined. Our study showed that splenectomy within 6 h after SCI improved BBB scores as compared to splenectomy more than 12 h after SCI from 6 to 28 days after SCI, and decrease the immune cell responses to SCI. Protein levels of IL-1β and TNF-α were significantly elevated in nonsplenectomized group compared to sham group. No difference was observed in IL-10 at the lesion site between splenectomised and nonsplenectomized groups at 3 days post-SCI. The study demonstrates that splenectomy within 6h after SCI would lessen the development of SCI and improve outcome.Significance StatementThe pathophysiologic changes in SCI involve secondary injury from the immune and inflammation system. The spleen is the largest immune organ in the mammalian lymphatic system. In animals, both splenectomy before or immediately after brain injury can alleviate the acute brain injury. However, splenectomy after SCI has not been extensively studied. Our study indicates that the splenectomy within 6 h after SCI limits neuroinflammatory pathology and improves neurological recovery. Our results implicate splenectomy could prove to be a therapeutic option to reduce injury in modulating the immune response following SCI. Therefore, the present study may form a novel strategy for biological and clinical research in SCI in the future. ER -