Assessment of Spinal DNA Damage Following L1 Contusion Spinal Cord Injury in Female C57Bl/6 Mice

DOI:10.34945/F5CC8T

DATASET CITATION

Scheijen E. E.M., Veeningen N., Duwé S., Ivanova A., Van Broeckhoven J., Hendrix S., Wilson III D. M. (2025) Assessment of Spinal DNA Damage Following L1 Contusion Spinal Cord Injury in Female C57Bl/6 Mice. Open Data Commons for Spinal Cord Injury. ODC-SCI:1278 http://doi.org/10.34945/F5CC8T

ABSTRACT

STUDY PURPOSE: Assessing the presence, timing, and spinal location of DNA damage following spinal cord injury.

DATA COLLECTED: 12-week-old female C57Bl/6 mice received a 75 kdyne contusion at spinal L1, were Sham-operated, or remained naive. At 1 hour post-injury (hpi), 1 day post-injury (dpi), 3 dpi, 7 dpi, and 28 dpi the mice were sacrificed (n = 6-10 per group). Histological analysis of the spinal cord was performed on longitudinal sections of the spinal cord. DNA damage was labeled using gamma-H2AX, neurons by NeuN labeling, Caspase-3 mediated apoptosis by Cleaved Caspase-3 labeling, and cell nuclei using DAPI. Imaging was performed on a Zeiss Axioscan using the 647, 488, and DAPI channels. Automatic analysis was performed using QuPath software. By thresholding, cells/neurons with gamma-H2AX foci (DNA-damaged cells), pan nuclear gamma-H2AX signal (cells with early cell death), and negative gamma-H2AX signal were identified and counted.

CONCLUSIONS: DNA damage accumulates rapidly (1 hour to 3 days post-injury) in the spinal cord following a severe SCI and the neuronal population is specifically affected.

KEYWORDS

Spinal Cord Injury; DNA damage response; DNA damage foci; gamma-H2AX; Neuronal death; DNA repair; 53BP1

PROVENANCE / ORIGINATING PUBLICATIONS

• . doi:10.1186/s12929-024-01104-8.

RELEVANT LINKS

NOTES

DATASET INFO

Contact: Scheijen Elle (elle.scheijen@kuleuven.be)

Lab: GRAND

ODC-SCI Accession:1278

Records in Dataset: 110

Fields per Record: 68

Last updated: 2025-03-12

Date published: 2025-03-12

Downloads: 1

Files: 2

LICENSE

Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0)

FUNDING AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special Research Fund (Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds, BOF) Hasselt University BOF20DOC16 (DMWIII)

CONTRIBUTORS

Scheijen, Elle E.M. [ORCID:0000-0001-5730-5225]

Neurosciences, Biomedical Research Institute, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Building C, 3590, Diepenbeek, Belgium

Veeningen, Naomi

Immunology and Infection, Biomedical Research Institute, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Building C, 3590, Diepenbeek, Belgium

Duwé, Sam

Advanced Optical Microscopy Centre, Biomedical Research Institute, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Building C, 3590, Diepenbeek, Belgium

Ivanova, Anna

Data Science Institute, Biomedical Research Institute, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Building D, 3590, Diepenbeek, Belgium

Van Broeckhoven, Jana

Immunology and Infection, Biomedical Research Institute, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Building C, 3590, Diepenbeek, Belgium

Hendrix, Sven

Institute for Translational Medicine, Medical School Hamburg, Am Kaiserkai 1, 20457, Hamburg, Germany

Wilson III, David M.

Neurosciences, Biomedical Research Institute, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Building C, 3590, Diepenbeek, Belgium