Beneficial effect of autologous transplantation of bone marrow stromal cells and endothelial progenitor cells on cerebral ischemia in rabbits

• Published in: Neuroscience letters 2008-11, Vol.445 (1), p.36-41
• Main Authors: Chen, Zhen-Zhou, Jiang, Xiao-Dan, Zhang, Li-Li, Shang, Jiang-Hua, Du, Mou-Xuan, Xu, Gang, Xu, Ru-Xiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis of Variance; Angiogenesis; Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Bone marrow stromal cells; Bone Marrow Transplantation - methods; Disease Models, Animal; Endothelial progenitor cells; Endothelium - cytology; Functional Laterality; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; In Situ Nick-End Labeling - methods; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery - physiopathology; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery - surgery; Medical sciences; Middle cerebral artery occlusion; Neurologic Examination; Neurology; Rabbits; Stem Cell Transplantation - methods; Stem Cells - physiology; Stromal Cells - physiology; Transplantation, Autologous - methods; Vascular diseases and vascular malformations of the nervous system; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs
• ISSN: 0304-3940; 1872-7972
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2008.08.039

We tested the therapeutic effect of autologous transplanted bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) on cerebral ischemia in rabbits. Rabbit permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) models were intravenously injected with ex vivo expanded autologous BMSCs ( n = 8), EPCs ( n = 8), or phosphate-buffered saline ( n = 6). 14 days after the transplantation, both infusion groups witnessed a functional improvement, a decrease in the number of apoptotic cells and an increase in the microvessel density in the ischemic boundary area, as compared to vehicle-treated control group. The EPCs treated group also exhibited a diminished infarct area in comparison with the control group. Moreover, immunohistochemistry revealed that few transplanted BMSCs expressed markers for astrocytes (GFAP +) and neurons (NeuN +), and most of EPCs were capable of binding to UEA-1 lectin and were incorporated into capillaries. Our data suggest that both BMSCs and EPCs, despite differences in their action mechanism, can be functional cytoreagents for treatment of cerebral ischemia in rabbits.