EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF COIX SEED ON SCIATIC NERVE REGENERATION IN RATS AFTER TRANSECTION INJURIES

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of Coix seed for the sciatic nerve injury of the experimental rats and investigate the mechanism of Coix seed for promoting the never regeneration.Methods: The same models of rats were divided into normal group, model group, Coix seed group and MIC group.The nerve tissue, gastrocnemius tissue, spinal cord, and ganglia were obtained after 14 d to observe morphologic index(nerve fiber silver nitrate stain, HE staining of nerve fibers, gastrocnemius HE staining), functional index(sciatic nerve function index, differential value of hind leg tensile force, ulcer index, and gastrocnemius wet weight index), and immunohistochemistry(expression of Bcl-2 and NGF).Results:(1) Coix seed can cause the increase of sciatic nerve function index, gastrocnemius wet weight index and nerve conduction velocity.In addition, it can cause the decrease of the difference of hind leg tensile force, and the ulcer index.Compared with the model group, there was a significant difference( P<0.01), while compared with the MIC group, there was not.(2) Coix seed can increase the expression of Bcl-2 and NGF proteins.Compared with the model group, there was a significant difference(P<0.01); compared with the MIC group, P<0.01.Coix seed was better than MIC in the aspect of increasing expression of Bcl-2 and NGF proteins.Conclusions:(1) The potential mechanism of Coix seed for peripheral nerve regeneration is: 1) enhancing the expression of NGF to accelerate the axon growth; 2) inhibiting the apoptosis of injured neuron so as to win the time for new axons to grow into the target organ.(2) Coix seed and MIC both showed good effectiveness in promoting nerve regeneration.Except that Coix seed was better than MIC in inhibiting the occurrence of ulcer, no other significant differences were found.