| Damaged axons in adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS) are unable to regenerate after injury although axons in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) or embryonic CNS can. The inhibitory molecules associated with myelin are one of the major obstacles to successful axon regeneration in the adult mammalian CNS. To date, three inhibitors of regeneration have been identified in myelin: NogoA, myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG), and oligodendrocyte-myelin glycoprotein (OMpg) (Filbin, 2003). Interestingly, all these three ligands bind to the same receptor Nogo receptor (NgR) to mediate the inhibitory effect. p75NTR or TROY and Lingo-1(L&barbelow;RR and I&barbelow;g domain-containing, N&barbelow;ogo Receptor interacting protein) are necessary components of the receptor complex as NgR is glycosyl phosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored and lacks a signaling domain (Wang et al., 2002a; Mi et al., 2004; Park et al., 2005; Shao et al., 2005). Activation of the receptor complex by myelin inhibitors activates the small GTPase RhoA resulting in rearrangement of the cytoskeleton and inhibition of axonal outgrowth (Hu and Strittmatter, 2004).;It has been shown in our lab that elevating intracellular levels of cyclic AMP (cAMP), either via application of a cAMP analog or by prior exposure to neurotrophins (NTs) can block the inhibition of axonal regeneration by MAG and myelin (Cai et al., 1999; Cai et al., 2001; Qiu et al., 2002). Elevation of cAMP results in up-regulation of arginase I (ArgI) and subsequent synthesis of polyamines. Up-regulation of ArgI or priming with the polyamine putrescine or spermidine blocks the inhibition of axonal growth by MAG/myelin (Cai et al., 2002; Deng et al., 2009). Polyamines are known to have effects in regulating cytoskeleton organization in both the short term and the long term, but their downstream effectors have yet to be identified. Many studies have shown that Cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) is involved in neurite outgrowth and regulates the neuronal cytosekeleton, which prompted us to hypothesize that Cdk5 may play a role in blocking MAG/myelin-mediated inhibition.;Cdk5 is a multifunctional serine/threonine kinase and its activator, p35, is expressed only in the nervous system (Tsai et al., 1994). It has been shown that activity of Cdk5 is required for neurite elongation (Nikolic et al., 1996; Paglini et al., 1998; Li et al., 2000; Harada et al., 2001). Cdk5 phosphorylates cytoskeleton proteins and regulates the organization of all three cytoskeleton elements microfilaments, microtubules and intermediate filaments (Dhavan and Tsai, 2001). Here we show that Cdk5 is required for db-cAMP and putrescine to overcome inhibition. The effect of db-cAMP and putrescine in overcoming inhibition by MAG is abolished in the presence of a specific inhibitor of Cdk5, Roscovitine. Neurons infected with dominant negative Cdk5 HSV viruses are not able to overcome inhibition by MAG in the presence of db-cAMP or putrescine. Importantly, neurons infected with HSV viruses overexpressing p35, the neuronal specific activator for Cdk5, overcome MAG's inhibition. Moreover, db-cAMP and putrescine increase the expression of p35. This in turn induces the kinase activity of Cdk5. The up-regulation of p35 by putrescine is also reflected in the increased distribution of p35 in neurites and growth cones. Furthermore, we show that putrescine up-regulates p35 protein by hypusine modification of eukaryotic Initiation Factor 5A (eIF5A), and this hypusination is necessary for putrescine to overcome inhibition by MAG. Our findings reveal a previously unknown mechanism by which polyamines encourage regeneration after CNS injury. |
