Research Article Acute Putrescine Supplementation with Schwann Cell Implantation Improves Sensory and Serotonergic Axon Growth and Functional Recovery in Spinal Cord Injured Rats

License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Schwann cell (SC) transplantation exhibits significant potential for spinal cord injury (SCI) repair and its use as a therapeutic modality has now progressed to clinical trials for subacute and chronic human SCI. Although SC implants provide a receptive environment for axonal regrowth and support functional recovery in a number of experimental SCI models, axonal regeneration is largely limited to local systems and the behavioral improvements are modest without additional combinatory approaches. In the current study we investigated whether the concurrent delivery of the polyamine putrescine, started either 30min or 1 week after SCI, could enhance the efficacy of SCs when implanted subacutely (1 week after injury) into the contused rat spinal cord. Polyamines are ubiquitous organic cations that play an important role in the regulation of the cell cycle, cell division, cytoskeletal organization, and cell differentiation.We show that the combination of putrescinewith SCs provides a significant increase in implan