Effects of Erythropoietin on CNS Neuron Regeneration and Involvement of Signal Transduction Mechanisms in vivo and in vitro

The cytokine hormone erythropoietin (EPO) promotes differentiation, proliferation, and maintenance of erythroid progenitor cells. Recent investigations have found CNS neurons responsive to local and systemic EPO, and that EPO can prevent physiological neuronal loss, and apoptotic death under pathological CNS conditions. Further, EPO has proved to be neuroprotective in various models of CNS injury, including EAE-related inflammation, kainate toxicity, hypoxic stress, serum deprivation and glutamate excitotoxicity. The impact of EPO on the regeneration of adult neurons is still unclear. Here, we compared outgrowth…