HUCB-MSCs transplants promote neurological functional recovery after traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Objective To locally inject human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to rat traumatic brain injury (TBI) model to investigate expression of neural markers and neurological functional improvement. Methods HUCB-MSCs were labeled by bis-benzimide for over 24 hours and stereotactically transplanted into the brain of the rats. All rats were divided into four groups, ie, sham injury group, TBI group, control (TBI + PBS) group and treatment (TBI + MSCs) group, Im-munohistochemical methods and immanofluorescence staining were used to observe the survival, migration and differentiation of the transplanted cells. The neurological functional improvement was evaluated by u-sing the neurological severity score (NSS). Results There existed a large number of MSCs survived in local region of the brain that received transplants, when some MSCs differentiated into neurons or astro-cytes and expressed the neurocyte markers including NSE and GFAP around the grafted site. Treatment group had significantly improved scores compared with sham injury group, TBI group and control group. Conclusions HUCB-MSCs transplantation can potentially improve neurological functional after TBI and may be a good alternative to bone marrow cells for stem cell transplantation or cell therapy. Key words: Brain injuries; Umbilical cord blood; Mesenchymal stem cells; Transplanta-tion