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Sam68 (Src-associated in mitosis of 68 kD), a KH domain RNA-binding protein, is not only important in signaling transduction cascades, but crucial in a variety of cellular processes. Sam68 is reported to be involved in the phospoinositide3-kinase (PI3K) and nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathways, and it is closely associated with cell proliferation, RNA metabolism, and tumor progression. However, we know little about the role of Sam68 during peripheral nervous system injury and regeneration. In this study, we investigated the expression of Sam68 and its biological significances in sciatic nerve crush. Interestingly, we found Sam68 had a co-localization with S100 (Schwann cell marker). Moreover, after crush, Sam68 had a spatiotemporal protein expression, which was in parallel with proliferation cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). In vitro, we also observed increased expression of Sam68 during the process of TNF-α-induced Schwann cell proliferation model. Besides, flow cytometry analyses, CCK-8, and EDU were all performed with the purpose of investigating the role of Sam68 in the regulation of Schwann cell proliferation. Even more importantly, we discovered that Sam68 could enhance the phosphorylation of Akt while LY294002 (a PI3K inhibitor) obviously reversed Sam68-induced cell proliferation. Finally, we detected the variance during regeneration progress through the rat walk footprint test. In summary, all these evidences demonstrated that Sam68 might participate in Schwann cell proliferation partially via PI3K/Akt pathway and also regulate regeneration after sciatic nerve crush. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dixdc1 (DIX domain containing-1), the mammalian homolog of Ccd1 (Coiled-coil-Dishevelled-Axin1), is a protein containing a coiled-coil domain and a Dishevelled-Axin (DIX) domain. As a novel component of the Wnt pathway, Dixdc1 has been reported to be able to promote neural progenitor proliferation and neuronal differentiation via Wnt/β-catenin signaling. But there still remains something unknown about Dixdc1 distribution and functions in the lesion and regeneration of the peripheral nervous system (PNS), so we tried to investigate dynamic changes of Dixdc1 expression in a rat sciatic nerve crush (SNC) model in this study. First of all, we detected SNC-induced increased levels of Dixdc1 in Schwann cells and interestingly identified parallel expression of PCNA (proliferation cell nuclear antigen) with Dixdc1. Besides, we observed up-regulated Dixdc1 during the process of TNF-α-induced Schwann cell proliferation. Also, we discovered that Dixdc1 could promote G1-S phase transition accompanied with the up-regulation of CyclinD1 and down-regulation of p21. More importantly, enhanced effects of Dixdc1 on cell proliferation were confirmed to be associated with PI3K activation. Not only blocking of the PI3K but Dixdc1 knockdown led to significantly decreased ability for proliferation, as well as down-regulation of CyclinD1 and up-regulation of p21. In summary, these data demonstrated that Dixdc1 might participate in Schwann cell proliferation by targeting CyclinD1 and p21 at least partially through the PI3K/AKT activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]