Identification of axonal regeneration-associated genes after spinal cord injury in adult zebrafish

Adult zebrafish regenerate about half of cerebrospinal axons by six weeks after a complete spinal cord transection. We isolated the two populations of neurons that successfully regenerated their axons versus those that did not and isolated the total RNA. Cerebrospinal neurons from unlesioned animals were also collected to serve as controls. Whole transcriptome microarray was performed to determine axonal regeneration-associated genes. For each condition (regenerated, non-regenerated and control neurons) we had 3 biological replicates that consisted of neurons pooled from 3 to 9 zebrafish.

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