Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a severe neurological disease with few efficacious drugs. Autophagy is a cellular process to confront with stress after SCI and considered to be a therapeutic target of SCI. In this study, we investigated the therapeutic effect of metformin on functional recovery after SCI and its underlying mechanism of autophagy regulation. Using a rat model of traumatic SCI, we found improved function recovery which was paralleled by a reduction of apoptosis after metformin treatment. We further examined autophagy via detecting autophagosomes by transmission electron microscopy and immunofluorescence, as well as autophagy markers by western blot in each groups. The results showed that the number of autophagosomes and expression of autophagy markers such as LC3 and beclin1 were increased in SCI group, while autophagy substrate protein p62 as well as ubiquitinated proteins were found to accumulate in SCI group, indicating an impaired autophagy flux in SCI. But, metformin treatment attenuated the accumulation of p62 and ubiquitinated proteins, suggesting a stimulative effect of autophagy flux by metformin. Blockage of autophagy flux by chloroquine partially abolished the apoptosis inhibition and functional recovery effect of metformin on SCI, which suggested that the protective effect of metformin on SCI was through autophagy flux stimulation. Activation of AMPK as well as inhibition of its downstream mTOR signaling were detected under metformin treatment in vivo and in vitro; inhibition of AMPK signaling by compound C suppressed autophagy flux induced by metformin in vitro, indicating that AMPK signaling was involved in the effect of metformin on autophagy flux regulation. Together, these results illustrated that metformin improved functional recovery effect through autophagy flux stimulation and implied metformin to be a potential drug for SCI therapy.
Keywords: AMPK; Apoptosis; Autophagy flux; Metformin; Spinal cord injury.