S-011
Effects of borosilicate-based bioactive glasses on dopaminergic neurons regeneration
Rodrigo Gamarra-Nallar1, Anna Guixeras2, Ashutosh Goel3, Francesc Cebrià2, Alejandro Gorustovich1
  1. Instituto de Estudios Interdisciplinarios de Ingeniería, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Católica de Salta
  2. Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics, School of Biology and Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona, University of Barcelona
  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Presenting Author:
Rodrigo José Gamarra Nallar
rgamarran@gmail.com
Bioactive glasses (BGs) have emerged as biomaterials capable of modulate neuroregeneration due to their ability to release ions with therapeutic effects. Boron (B) has shown neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory properties, making borosilicate BGs a promising alternative to promote neuroregeneration. Parallelly, there is growing interest in alternative models that reduce the use of vertebrates in neuroscience. The planarian Schmidtea mediterranea has been studied as a model organism in neuroregeneration due to the presence of orthologs of enzymes such as tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), that confirms evolutionary homology of metabolic pathways. In this study we used BGs of the system Na2O−B2O3−SiO2 with two different B2O3 concentrations (18.75 and 37.5 mol%). Ionic dissolution products (IDP) were obtained by incubation of BG microparticles (300 – 425 μm) in planarian artificial medium in an orbital shaker for 24-72 h. The soluble ions (B, Si and Na) leached from BGs were determined by ICP-OES. 4-6 mm planarians were amputated at pre and posfaringeal level and the resulting trunks were soaked in the IDP at 20±1°C. At 7 d post amputation, regenerating planarians were processed to determine the expression of TH by in situ hybridization. Planarians exposed to IDP with non-toxic concentrations of B exhibited an increase in the expression of TH, whereas IDP containing higher B concentrations reduced their expression and altered the topographic organization of dopaminergic neurons.