星形胶质细胞只是旁观者吗?

Is astrocyte just a bystander?

近年来,关于胶质细胞参与神经病理性痛发生的报道层出不穷,但关于星形胶质细胞和小胶质细胞这两种主要的胶质细胞的作用却争论不休。《神经化学杂志》(J Neurochem)上的一篇文章就指出,在脊髓水平,只有小胶质细胞参与了神经病理性痛的发生,而星形胶质细胞并未参与其中。针对这一问题,我们经过仔细论证后指出,由于作者的观察指标存在局限性,所以星形胶质细胞在脊髓水平很可能也参与了神经病理性痛的发生和发展。

Recently, there have been so many reports about the participation of glial cells in the development of neuropathic pain. However, between microglia and astrocytes, it has been debated that which one plays the key role in the neuropathic pain development. An interesting report from ＂Journal of Neurochemistry＂ suggested that it was microglia but not astrocytes that contributed to the development of neuropathic pain at the spinal level. We carefully argued that because of the limitation of the marker used to detect the expression of spinal astrocytes, spinal astrocytes could probably participate in the development of neuropathic pain.