Browsing by Subject "Peripheral nervous system"

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Open Access
Bioactive nanomaterials for neural engineering
(Springer, Cham, 2016) Sever, Melike; Uyan, İdil; Tekinay, Ayse B.; Güler, Mustafa O.; Zhang, L. G.; Kaplan, D. L.
Nervous system is a highly complex interconnected network and higher organisms including humans have limited neural regeneration capacity. Neurodegenerative diseases result in significant cognitive, sensory, or motor impairments. Following an injury in the neural network, there is a balance between promotion and inhibition of regeneration and this balance is shifted to different directions in central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS). More regeneration capacity is observed in the PNS compared to the CNS. Although, several mechanisms play roles in the inhibitory and growth-promoting natures of the CNS and PNS, extracellular matrix (ECM) elements are key players in this process. ECM is a three-dimensional environment where the cells migrate, proliferate, and differentiate (Rutka et al. 1988; Pan et al. 1997). After a comprehensive investigation of the interactions between the ECM proteins and cell receptors, the ECM environment was found to regulate significant cellular processes such as survival, proliferation, differentiation, and migration (Yurchenco and Cheng 1994; Aszodi et al. 2006). Its components have major roles not only in neurogenesis during development of the nervous system but also in normal neural functioning during adulthood (Hubert et al. 2009).
Open Access
Nanomaterials for neural regeneration
(John Wiley & Sons, 2016-03-11) Sever, Melike; Mammadov, Büşra; Geçer, Mevhibe; Güler, Mustafa O.; Tekinay, Ayşe B.; Güler, Mustafa O.; Tekinay, Ayşe B.
The central nervous system (CNS) consists of a dense network of cells leaving a smaller volume for the extracellular matrix (ECM) components (10‐20% for the brain unlike most other tissues (Cragg, 1979)). The reaction of the nervous tissue to any injury leading to scar tissue formation acts as a barrier for regeneration in the CNS, while it supports regeneration in the peripheral nervous system (PNS). By mimicking several unique characteristics of the natural environment of cells, synthetic materials for neural regeneration can be improved chemically and biologically. Especially bioactivation of materials can be achieved by addition of small chemical moieties to the scaffold particularly found in specific tissues or addition of biologically active molecules derived from natural ECM. The ECM‐derived short peptides are promising candidates to be presented as functional domains on the scaffold surface for use in neural regeneration.