Reactive astrocytes in lesioned rat spinal cord: effect of neural transplants.

The astroglial reaction following a laceration-type surgical lesion of rat spinal cord is recognized by hypertrophy of astrocytes. This phenomenon can be readily demonstrated by enhanced immunoreactivity for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and a recently discovered 30 kD protein (J1-31 antigen). The results reported in this article lead to the conclusion that the astroglial reaction is not influenced significantly by the transplantation of embryonic neocortical tissue to the cavity of a laceration-type lesion. These observations could be relevant to the assessment of strategies for treatment of spinal cord injury.