Objective
Damage to the central nervous system (CNS) often leads to persistent functional deficits, causing
great individual suffering and enormous cost to society. The manifestation of these deficits is
believed to be associated with the scar tissue that forms locally at lesions, causing permanent tissue
alteration and blocking regeneration.
Research on CNS scar tissue has primarily focused on astrocytes and it is often referred to as the
glial scar. However, although it has received much less attention, there is also a connective tissue or
stromal, non-glial, component of the scar.
While studying spinal cord injury-induced scarring, I recently discovered a new subpopulation of
perivascular cells, named type A pericytes, as a major source of connective scar tissue. Type A
pericytes are embedded in the vascular wall but proliferate and leave the blood vessel upon injury,
differentiating into fibroblast-like cells that deposit extracellular matrix to seal the lesion and form
the persistent stromal scar core.
The aim of the proposal is to determine whether type A pericytes are a general source of
pathological connective tissue in the CNS, to understand the nature of type A pericytes, and to
uncover the signaling mechanisms mediating their recruitment. By comparing several different
injury and disease models the proposed research intends to uncover common mechanisms of
scarring and fibrosis and to identify new targets for human treatment after CNS injury.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
ERC-2012-StG_20111109
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
ERC-SG - ERC Starting GrantHost institution
17177 Stockholm
Sweden