Figure 1

Systemically administered anti-TNF therapy does not affect motosensory functions or lesion size after SCI. (A) Analysis of Basso Mouse Scale (BMS) scores in mice treated systemically every third day with either XPro1595, etanercept, or saline for 8 weeks (56 days) showed comparable locomotor performance in the open field arena (P = 0.64), though all groups significantly improved their BMS score over time (****P <0.0001, two-way repeated masures ANOVA). (B) Luxol fast blue stained thoracic spinal cord sections from mice treated with either saline, XPro1595, or etanercept and allowed 8 weeks survival after SCI. Scale bar: 100 μm. (C) Catwalk analysis showing changes in front and hind limb stride length and front- and hind limb base of support (BOS) over time after SCI. No difference was observed between saline-, XPro1595-, and etanercept-treated mice; however, all mice displayed significant changes in stride length (**P <0.01 for hind limbs and *****P <0.0001 for front limbs, respectively) and BOS on the front limbs (**P <0.01) over time. (D) Gridwalk analysis showing changes in the average number of foot falls errors and average number of foot slips errors over time after SCI. No difference was observed between saline-, XPro1595-, and etanercept-treated mice; however, all mice displayed significant changes over time both in foot falls errors (***P <0.001) and foot fall slips (***P <0.001). (E) Analysis of thermal hyperalgesia after SCI showed no differences in latencies to remove left (P = 0.27) or right (P = 0.16) hind limbs after stimulation between saline-, XPro1595-, or etanercept-treated mice. All mice did, however, display significant changes over time in the latency to remove both the left and right hind limbs after stimulation (****P <0.0001).