Copper-regulated cell death after spinal cord injury: evidence boundaries for non-coding RNA, epigenetics and cuproptosis.

Abstract

Background: Spinal cord injury (SCI) initiates a secondary-injury cascade involving mitochondrial dysfunction, metal dyshomeostasis, neuroinflammation, and regulated cell death. Cuproptosis, a copper-dependent form of regulated cell death driven by lipoylated mitochondrial protein aggregation, has reframed copper dyshomeostasis as a potential molecular vulnerability rather than a passive trace-metal disturbance.

Main body: This targeted narrative review critically synthesizes the FDX1-lipoylation-DLAT/DLST cuproptosis pathway, copper trafficking and redistribution after SCI, and the evidence boundary between spinal cord ischemia-reperfusion injury (SCIRI) and traumatic SCI. We evaluate two distinct but interacting regulatory layers: non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), including microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs, circular RNAs, and extracellular-vesicle RNAs; and epigenetic regulation, including DNA methylation, histone modifications, and RNA modifications. Evidence is graded to distinguish established canonical biochemistry, the strongest direct preclinical mechanistic evidence in spinal-cord models, associative or hypothesis-generating traumatic-SCI evidence, non-SCI mechanistic validation, and testable hypotheses.

Conclusion: At present the ncRNA-epigenetics-cuproptosis axis represents a molecular-neurobiological framework that still requires experimental validation rather than a clinically actionable pathway. The highest-priority next step is temporally and spatially resolved traumatic SCI validation that combines copper mapping, cell-type-specific cuproptosis execution assays, immune profiling, and genetic or pharmacological rescue experiments.