Tissue Engineering of Rodent Optic Nerves as a Model for Myelination

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Myelination is a complex process that cannot be modeled using unicellular culture of oligodendrocytes and the production of myelinating cell cultures is difficult, time consuming and still does not truly model myelination as it occurs in vivo. We propose a cross discipline collaboration between the laboratories of Dr. M G Salter of the Faculty Biological Sciences and Dr Sotirios Korossis of the School of Mechanical Engineering, both at Leeds University, to create a unique culturing system designed to model white matter development in a way that is amenable to genetic modification and scientific study. When complete this system will allow us to successfully culture an optic nerve from the pre myelinating stage through myelination to a point where it is fully myelinated and will be available as an experimental model for both myelination and injury. The technology developed will be used as the basis for future applications for funding that look to investigate the effect of re perfusion following ischemic challenge, the effect of ablation of developmental proteins involved in myelination and for morphological investigation of the process of myelination. It is important to note that this will not just be proof of principle for this particular system. By using tissue engineering to develop a more functionally relevant a model system we will be providing a proof of principal for others working on complex tissue types who are currently using simplified mono cellular culture systems as models.