Abstract: The incidence of spinal cord injury is increasing year by year, and more and more attentions have been paid. Growth factors can promote the regeneration of nerve fibers and synapses, and they also play an important role in the treatment of spinal cord injury and the recovery of neurological function. The growth factor itself has a short half-life, so it is necessary to use growth factor gene vectors to transfect stem cells and nanoparticles to deliver growth factors or biocompatible scaffolds to support growth factors to treat spinal cord injuries. With the development of the research on growth factors, the application of single growth factor is difficult to meet the need of treatment to spinal cord injury. To explore the synergistic effect of various growth factors in order to achieve a better therapeutic effect is a promising research direction in the future. The purpose of this review is to summarize the therapeutic effects of growth factors on spinal cord injury including brain-derived neurotrophic factor, neurotrophic factor 3, nerve growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor and synergy therapy of growth factors.

Key words: spinal cord injury, intercellular signaling peptides and proteins, brain- derived neurotrophic factor, neurotrophic factor-3, nerve growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor