Transcriptional profile of denervated vastus lateralis muscle derived from a patient 8 months after spinal cord injury: a case report

A lack of motor neurons abolishes both neurotrophic factor secretion and contractile activity in muscle, which impairs mass, contractile properties, and fibre-type characteristics of the muscle. However, the molecular pathways that can be stimulated or repressed in the scenario of spinal cord injury remain unknown. We investigated for the first time the transcriptional profile of a young male patient 8 months after spinal cord injury. Adaptive metabolic changes of complete denervated skeletal muscle were revealed. In particular, the main molecular pathways involved include metabolic and proteolitic pathways, mitochondrial and synaptic function, calcium homeostasis, sarcomere and anchorage structures. Our data depict the molecular signalling still present in complete denervated skeletal muscle fibres a few months after spinal cord injury. These data could be of interest also to design a specific therapeutic approach aimed at the electrical-stimulation of severe atrophied skeletal muscle.