Current Research Interest: Axonal Regeneration in the Central Nervous System.

Injury to axons in the CNS leads to little regenerative repair and loss of function. Conversely, injury to axons in the PNS results in vigorous regrowth of severed axons, usually with restoration of function. This difference is generally attributed to a CNS environment that either cannot support or actively inhibits regeneration and/or a failure of CNS neurons to survive axotomy. One of the earliest responses of neurons to axotomy is the resealing of cut axons. A delay in resealing could affect a neuron's ability to survive axotomy and to regenerate a new axon. Recently we have used a dye exclusion technique to demonstrate that following transection of a peripheral nerve, axons reseal within 8-10 hours whereas following optic nerve transection complete resealing does not occur for more than 20 hours. These results show that resealing of cut axons in a CNS environment is significantly delayed compared with axons in the PNS and suggest that this could contribute to the failure of CNS neurons to regenerate following injury. Future experiments investigate whether axonal survival following injury can be prolonged by facilitating axonal resealing.

Representative Publications:

Wang, Y. and Ingoglia, N.A. (1997) N-terminal arginylation of sciatic nerve and brain proteins following injury. Neurochem. Res. 22, 1453-1459.

Zhang, N. Donnelly, R. and Ingoglia, N.A. (1998) Evidence that oxidized proteins are targets for N-terminal arginylaytion. Neurochem. Res. V. 23 No. 11, 1411-1420.

Ramanathan, M., Hassanain, M., Levitt, M., Seth, A., Tolman, S., Fried, V. and Ingoglia, N.A. (1999) Oxidative stress increases ubiquitin-protein conjugates in rat brain synaptosomes. NeuroReport 10, 3797-3802.

Ingoglia, N.A., Ramanathan, M, Zhang, N., Tseng, B., Mathur, G. Opuni, K. and Donnelly, R. (2000) What is the signal for arginylation? Neurochem. Res. 25:1 51-58.

Ramanathan, M. Kuo, E., Lambert, WC and Ingoglia, N. (2000) Electroporation as a technique for introducing proteins into synaptosomes. J. Neurosci. Methods. 96, 19-23.

Farid, A.K.M, Ingoglia, N.A., Sharma, S.C. (2001) Resealing following transection takes longer in a central nerve than in a peripheral nerve: Implications for nerve regeneration. In press: Experimental. Neurology 167, 451-455.

Ingoglia, N.A. and Murray , M. Editors: Axonal Regeneration in the Central Nervous System, Marcel Dekker Inc. (2001); 26 contributors, 772 pages.