Objective and design: The importance of cytokine- and chemokine-mediated neuroinflammation in the progress of brain injury is becoming increasingly evident. We investigated the early local cytokine and chemokine expression and the development of tissue injury after moderate mechanical hippocampus trauma.
Material or subjects: Mouse organotypic hippocampal slice cultures.
Treatment: Drop-weight trauma in the CA1 region of the hippocampus.
Methods: Staining of necrotic tissue, PCR array and evaluation, real-time PCR, statistical analysis with a two-tailed, independent t test.
Results: At 12 and 24 h after trauma, the tissue injury spread from the primary mechanical lesion to the entire hippocampal formation. A pronounced up-regulation of distinct chemokine transcripts was found 4 h after in vitro traumatic brain injury which preceded the development of the secondary injury.
Conclusions: The enhanced expression of inflammatory genes might contribute to the development of the secondary trauma and could pinpoint future neuroinflammatory and neuroprotective targets for research and treatment.