The dorsal portion of the lumbar intervertebral disc is innervated primarily by small peptide-containing dorsal root ganglion neurons in rats

The intervertebral discs are innervated by the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. In the present study, we applied Fluoro-Gold (FG) to the dorsal portion of the L5-L6 intervertebral disc to label DRG neurons retrogradely, and then examined whether FG-labeled neurons were substance P (SP)-immunoreactive or isolectin B4 (IB4)-binding. Of the FG-labeled neurons, 44.0% were immunoreactive for SP, whereas only 0.6% were reactive for IB4. The rate of SP-immunoreactive neurons was significantly higher than that of IB4-binding neurons (P<0.001), suggesting that under physiological conditions the dorsal portion of the lumbar disc is mainly innervated by peptide-containing neurons.