ABSTRACT
Following peripheral nerve injury, there is a dramatic change in gene expression in axotomized peripheral neurons. While this fact has been recognized for some years, almost nothing has been known about the signals that trigger these changes. Evidence now indicates that at least two sets of factors are involved: factors induced in nonneuronal cells in response to axotomy and target factors, whose availability to the cell body is dramatically reduced by axotomy. The data also raise the possibility that simultaneous changes in these two factors might lead to a different pattern of gene expression than that seen when injury factors are induced without changes in target factors, for example, after preganglionic axotomy.
