Cells Transplantation for the Repair of Peripheral Nerve Injuries

Abstract

Peripheral nerve injury, resulted from different trauma and diseases, is quite popular in clinic and frequently leading to life-long disability. Although the peripheral nerve system has a more suitable environment for axon regeneration than the central nerve system, the treatment for the nerve injury is still a practical problem in clinic. Particularly, it is more difficult to repair the nerve defects with a greater gap, which needs to be bridged with different grafts. Autografts are considered as “gold standard” for surgical repair, but have many limitations. Therefore, the cells transplantation for the repair of peripheral nerve injury is a current interesting field in order to replace autografts. Generally, the donor cells derived from different tissue and ages, such as stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, olfactory ensheathing cells and Schwann cells, are filled into the lumen of the synthetic and natural conduits to form artificial nerve for repairing the peripheral nerve defect, but the outcomes are various in the current literatures due to different donor cells, nerve conduits and animal injury model. The firearm nerve injuries are more special for surgical treatment as their wound features, so the research about it should be enhanced in the future.