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Nogo-A–specific antibody treatment enhances sprouting and functional recovery after cervical lesion in adult primates

Nature Medicine volume 12, pages 790–792 (2006)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 01 October 2006

This article has been updated

Abstract

In rodents, after spinal lesion, neutralizing the neurite growth inhibitor Nogo-A promotes axonal sprouting and functional recovery. To evaluate this treatment in primates, 12 monkeys were subjected to cervical lesion. Recovery of manual dexterity and sprouting of corticospinal axons were enhanced in monkeys treated with Nogo-A–specific antibody as compared to monkeys treated with control antibody. NOTE: In the version of this article initially published, the cut corticospinal tract (CST) stumps rostral to the lesion site in Figure 2d and Supplementary Fig. 3a online were meant to be represented schematically, a fact not explained in the figure legend. These representations should therefore have been replaced by full camera lucida reconstructions of these rostral cut CST stumps for the corresponding animals, requiring the consideration of additional sections of the spinal cord located more laterally than those drawn here for the reconstruction of the CST axonal arbors caudal to the lesion (sections for which the contours are represented here). The figure has been corrected in the HTML and the PDF versions of the article.

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Figure 1: Quantitative assessment of manual dexterity before and after lesion.
Figure 2: Nogo-A–specific antibody enhanced motor recovery and corticospinal axonal sprouting.

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Change history

  • 13 September 2006

    In the version of this article initially published, the cut corticospinal tract (CST) stumps rostral to the lesion site in Figure 2d and Supplementary Fig. 3a online were meant to be represented schematically, a fact not explained in the figure legend. These representations should therefore have been replaced by full camera lucida reconstructions of these rostral cut CST stumps for the corresponding animals, requiring the consideration of additional sections of the spinal cord located more laterally than those drawn here for the reconstruction of the CST axonal arbors caudal to the lesion (sections for which the contours are represented here). The figure has been corrected in the HTML and the PDF versions of the article.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the following for their technical assistance: G. Fischer, V. Moret, C. Roulin and F. Tinguely (histology and behavioral evaluations), J. Corpataux, B. Bapst and B. Morandi (animal house keeping), A. Gaillard (mechanics), B. Aebischer (electronics), L. Monney (informatics). This study was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation grants 31-61857.00 (to E.M.R.), 31-63633.00 (to M.E.S.) and 4038043918/2 (PNR-38); the Novartis Foundation, the National Centre of Competence in Research on “Neural plasticity and repair,” and the Christopher Reeves Foundation (Springfield, NJ). Antibodies were provided by Novartis Pharma.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Patrick Freund, Eric Schmidlin and Thierry Wannier: These authors contributed equally to the study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Unit of Physiology and Program in Neurosciences, Faculty of Sciences, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 5, Fribourg, CH-1700, Switzerland

    Patrick Freund, Eric Schmidlin, Thierry Wannier & Eric M Rouiller

  2. Department of Biology, Brain Research Institute, University of Zürich, ETH Zürich, Winterthurerstr. 190, Zürich, CH-8057, Switzerland

    Thierry Wannier & Martin E Schwab

  3. Department of Neurosurgery, Neurosurgery Clinic, University Hospital of Lausanne, Rue du Bugnon, Lausanne, CH-1011, Switzerland

    Jocelyne Bloch

  4. Neuroscience Research, Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research, Basel, CH-4002, Switzerland

    Anis Mir

Authors
  1. Patrick Freund
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  7. Eric M Rouiller
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric M Rouiller.

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Competing interests

Nogo-A–specific antibody treatment enhances sprouting and functional recovery after cervical lesion in adult primates. P Freund, E Schmidlin, T Wannier, J Bloch, A Mir, M E Schwab & E M Rouiller. Novartis Pharma AG provided the antibodies used in this study.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Fig. 1

Organization of the corticospinal projection in the macaque monkey and reconstructions of the cervical lesions performed in the 12 monkeys. (PDF 650 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 2

Assessment of motor capacity of forelimbs and hindlimbs (PDF 145 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 3

Morphological analysis of labeled corticospinal axons; health condition of monkeys. (PDF 1194 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

List of cervical cord lesioned monkeys included in the present study with identification code. (PDF 28 kb)

Supplementary Methods (PDF 43 kb)

Supplementary Note (PDF 21 kb)

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Freund, P., Schmidlin, E., Wannier, T. et al. Nogo-A–specific antibody treatment enhances sprouting and functional recovery after cervical lesion in adult primates. Nat Med 12, 790–792 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm1436

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