Signal flow and pathways in response to early Wallerian degeneration after rat sciatic nerve injury

Wallerian degeneration (WD) remains a subject of critical research interest in modern neurobiology. WD is a process which a large number of genes are differentially regulated, especially the early response to activate nerve degeneration and regeneration, but the precise mechanisms remain elusive. In this study, we report the signal pathways, key regulate recurrent neural networks and signal flow in the early WD. The data indicated that there are several kinds of up- or down-regulated genes, relating to the regulation of response to stimulus, signal transmission via phosphorylation event, immune response, apoptosis and regulation of cell communication. KEGG pathway analysis revealed activity mainly relating to cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, MAPK signaling pathway, Jak-STAT signaling pathway, ErbB signaling pathway and TGF-beta signaling pathway involved in the recurrent neural networks that were regulated by the key factors, Cldn-14, Cldn-15, ITG, BID and BIRC3. These results will help to much better understand information relating to the early response to WD and provide us with a firmer basis in future investigations on the molecular mechanisms of WD that regulate nerve degeneration and/or regeneration. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.