A Glucocorticoid Spike Derails Muscle Repair to Heterotopic Ossification After Spinal Cord Injury

Overview

Journal Cell Rep Med

Publisher Cell Press

Specialties Biology
General Medicine

Date 2024 Dec 10

PMID 39657663

Authors

Kylie A Alexander

Hsu-Wen Tseng

Hong Wa Lao

Dorothee Girard

Valerie Barbier

Jacobus P J Ungerer

Brett C McWhinney

Selwin G Samuel

Whitney Fleming

Ingrid G Winkler

Marjorie Salga

Francois Genet

Sebastien Banzet

Marc J Ruitenberg

Jean-Pierre Levesque

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Why severe injury to the central nervous system (CNS) triggers the development of large neurogenic heterotopic ossifications (NHOs) within periarticular muscles remains unknown. We report that spinal cord injury (SCI) triggers a rapid corticosterone spike in mice, which is causal for NHO development because treatments with corticosterone or the synthetic glucocorticoid (GC) receptor (GR) agonist dexamethasone are sufficient to trigger heterotopic ossification and upregulate the expression of osteoinductive and osteogenic differentiation genes in injured muscles even without SCI. The central role for GR signaling in causing NHO is further demonstrated in mice deleted for the GR gene (Nr3c1), which no longer develop NHO after SCI. Furthermore, administration of clinical GR antagonists inhibits NHO development in mice with SCI. This study identifies endogenous GC as causing pathological NHO after CNS injury and suggests that GR antagonists may be of prophylactic use to prevent NHO development in victims of severe CNS injuries.

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