A reassessment of spinal cord pathology in severe infantile spinal muscular atrophy: Reassessment of spinal cord pathology

Abstract

Aims: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a life-limiting paediatric motor neuron disease characterised by lower motor neuron loss, skeletal muscle atrophy and respiratory failure, if untreated. Revolutionary treatments now extend patient survival. However, a limited understanding of the foundational neuropathology challenges the evaluation of therapeutic success. As opportunities to study treatment-naïve tissue decrease, we have characterised spinal cord pathology in severe infantile SMA using gold-standard techniques, providing a baseline to measure treatment success and therapeutic limitations.

Methods: Detailed histological analysis, stereology and transmission electron microscopy were applied to post-mortem spinal cord from severe infantile SMA patients to estimate neuron number at the end of life; characterise the morphology of ventral horn, lateral horn and Clarke's column neuron populations; assess cross-sectional spinal cord area; and observe myelinated white matter tracts in the clinically relevant thoracic spinal cord.

Results: Ventral horn neuron loss was substantial in all patients, even the youngest cases. The remaining ventral horn neurons were small with abnormal, occasionally chromatolytic morphology, indicating cellular damage. In addition to ventral horn pathology, Clarke's column sensory-associated neurons displayed morphological features of cellular injury, in contrast to the preserved sympathetic lateral horn neurons. Cellular changes were associated with aberrant development of grey and white matter structures that affected the overall dimensions of the spinal cord.

Conclusions: We provide robust quantification of the neuronal deficit found at the end of life in SMA spinal cord. We question long-accepted dogmas of SMA pathogenesis and shed new light on SMA neuropathology out with the ventral horn, which must be considered in future therapeutic design.

Keywords: chromatolysis; grey matter; morphology; motor; motor neuron disease; sensory; stereology; white matter.