PGAt’s mesh allows the infiltration of oxygen to support the regeneration process, and is absorbed in the body via hydrolysis, beginning to break down at three months, and reabsorbed within six to eight months from implantation. No hydration or preparation

of Neurotube is necessary prior to Autophagy inhibitor surgery. Primary culture of BMSC was according to Dezawa et al. (2001). Briefly, bone marrow was removed from two rat femurs by injecting 10 mL of alpha-MEM culture medium (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA) in the bone canal, allowing immediate suspension of cells, which were cultured in alpha-MEM, supplemented with fetal bovine serum (FBS) at 15%, 2 mM glutamine, and antibiotics (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA). Cultures were incubated at 37 C, with 5% CO2. After 24 h, non-adhered cells were removed and media replaced. Cells were subcultured two times and frozen

in complete click here medium containing 10% DMSO (Azizi et al., 1998). For virus production, HEK-293T cells were plated and transfected by calcium phosphate with the lentiviral vector plasmid and the packaging vectors psPAX2 and pCMV-VSVg (Addgene). Virus supernatants were concentrated by ultracentrifugation, aliquoted and stored at −80 C. One X 105 BMSC from passage 3 were transduced in suspension using LV-Lac at a MOI (multiplicity of infection) of 1.9 and polybrene at 4 µg/mL in 500 µL of media. After 2 h, the suspension was seeded in a 35 mm plate in 2 mL medium. This procedure was reproduced in several plates. After 48 h of culture, control cells were fixed in 2% paraformaldehyde, 0.2% glutaraldehyde in 100 mM sodium phosphate

buffer, pH 7.3 for 5 min, 4 C and stained in 1.2 mM MgCl2, those 3 mM K3Fe(CN)6, 3 mM K4Fe(CN)6 and 1 mg/mL x-gal in 100 mM sodium phosphate buffer, pH 7.3 for 16 h at 37 C to reveal β-galactosidase activity. Transduced cells were cryopreserved and denominated BMSClacZ+. BMSClacZ+ cells were expanded, harvested in trypLE express (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA), 1 mM EDTA, resuspended in Matrigel® (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA) at 1–2×107/mL, and kept on ice for a few minutes until the surgical procedure. BMSC differentiation into Schwann-like cells was according to Dezawa et al. (2001). BMSClacZ+ cells were cultivated for ten days in complete medium, which was replaced every 48 h. On the tenth day, media was replaced by alpha-MEM, supplemented with sodium pyruvate to 1 mM, beta-mercaptoethanol (Sigma, St Louis MO) to 1 mM, 2 mM glutamine and antibiotics. After 24 h, media was replaced by alpha-MEM, 2 mM glutamine, 10% FBS, 35 ng/mL all-trans retinoic acid (Sigma, St Louis, MO), and antibiotics, and maintained for 72 h.