Effects Of Neural Stem Cells Transplantation On The Level Of Iron And Ceruloplasmin In The Substantia Nigra Of Parkinson’s Rats

Parkinson’s disease(PD) in the elderly is a common degenerative disease of central nervous system. In recent years, PD has seriously affected the advanced quality of life in elderly patients. Although mounting evidence suggests that ceruloplasmin(CP) deficiency and iron deposition are pivotal factors responsible for exacerbating demise of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra(SN) of the Parkinsonism, and neural stem cells(NSCs) are believed to be excellent candidates for compensating the lost dopaminergic neurons and improving Parkinson’s symptoms, there are seldom researches to explore the changes of CP expression and of iron deposition in the pathological microenvironment of SN after NSCs transplantation. Therefore, our study will explore the microenvironmental changes especially iron and CP metabolism and the effects on the motor symptoms after NSCs transplantation into the SN targets of PD rats.With stereotaxic technique, NSCs transplantation, immunohistochemical staining, Western blot and real time-PCR, we determined the content of tyrosine hydroxylase(TH), CP and iron respectively in three groups: control healthy rats, 6-OHDA-treated and NSC-grafted 6-OHDA-treated Parkinson’s rats. Also, we evaluated the change of movement disorder with rotation behavior induced by apomorphine.We show here that the TH and CP expression decreased and iron deposition increased in the lesioned SN after 6-OHDA administration compared with control, while that of TH and CP expression increased and iron deposition decreased after NSCs transplantation compared to 6-OHDA administration alone, but still far from normal level. Two weeks after NSCs transplantation, the rotational behavior was significantly improved and continued to eighth weeks, but no significant difference in the model group.These results suggest that NSCs transplanted into SN are viable, the transplanted NSCs can differentiate into dopaminergic neurons, which will play a neuroprotective effect and relieve behavioral disfunction by increasing ceruloplasmin expression and decreasing iron deposition in PD rats.