A Comprehensive Approach To Spinal Cord Injury: Simultaneous Targeting Of Bone,Vascular & Neural Repair

Spinal cord injury(SCI)is a destructive condition with high disability and mortality and for which very few patients were completely cured.Mesenchymal stem cell(MSC)-mediated tissue regeneration is a promising strategy to treat traumatic SCI.Bone marrow MSCs have great potential as therapeutic agents,since they are easy to isolate and expand and are capable of producing various cell types.Cytokines such as epidermal growth factor(EGF)and basic fibroblast growth factor(bFGF)can promote axon regeneration.In one previous study,Parathyroid Hormone(PTH)can stimulates the recruitment of intravenous injected MSC to the fracture callus.We tested MSCs neuronal differentiation capacity in vitro with different treatment combination of EGF/bFGF/PTH.Immunocytochemistry,Western blotting and real-time PCR data showed that neuronal induced MSCs express several neuronal markers such as Beta-III-Tubulin,Microtubule-associated Protein 2(MAP-2),Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein(GFAP)and Nestin.We also tested recovery of neurological function and new vasculature formation following MSCs treatments in mouse spinal cord hemisection models treatment with EGF+bFGF and/or PTH.Our data demonstrated MSCs transplantation can increase local new vasculature volume and density and promote Basso,Beattie,and Bresnahan(BBB)Locomotor Rating in SCI mice.All the data didn't suggest that MSCs combined with EGF+bFGF and/or PTH are beneficial to recovery of SCI.