Galectin-3 exerts a pro-differentiating and pro-myelinating effect within a temporal window spanning precursors and pre-oligodendrocytes: Insights into the action mechanism

THOMAS, LAURA; PASQUINI, LAURA ANDREA

Congreso; LXIII Annual Meeting of Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica (SAIC). LXVI Annual Meeting of Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología (SAI); XLVIII Annual Meeting of Sociedad Argetina de Fisiología (SAFIS); 2018

Galectin-3 (Gal-3) is a chimeric protein structurally composed of unusual tandem repeats of proline and short glycine-rich segments fused onto a carbohydrate recognition domain. It possesses multifaceted roles in physiological processes including the regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses. Our previous studies have demonstrated that Gal-3 (rGal-3) treatment promotes the formation of functional myelin by modulating microglial phenotypes. Furthermore, Gal-3 was shown to endorse oligodendroglial precursor cell (OPC) maturation and differentiation into mature oligodendrocytes (OLG), and Gal-3 ligands are only found in immature OLG. The cytoskeleton has been extensively shown to play a key role in OLG maturation and the morphological changes necessary to create fully mature OLG capable of myelination. Recent studies demonstrate that the initial stage of OLG process extension requires dynamic actin filament assembly, while subsequent myelin wrapping coincides with the upregulation of actin disassembly proteins which are dependent on MPB expression. The aim of our work is to elucidate the temporal window by which rGal-3 drives OLG maturation, and to evaluate the myelinating capacity of rGal-3-treated OLG.