Abstract
Human umbilical cord blood is a rich source of pluripotent mesenchymal stem cells and possesses significant advantages over other stem cell sources such as the embryo and bone marrow. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the potential of human umbilical cord blood-derived pluripotent mesenchymal stem cells (hUCB) to myelinate the axons of shiverer mice brains. We also investigated the effect of hUCB treatment on regulation of myelin basic protein in vitro in PC-12 cells, which are normally not myelinated. The results of our study clearly demonstrated that hUCB survive and migrate in vivo and has the potential to myelinate shiverer mice brains. The expression level of myelin basic protein, a major component of the myelin sheath, has been significantly increased in vivo and in vitro as revealed by Western blot, reverse transcription (RT)-polymerase chain reaction, immunohistochemistry, immunocytochemistry, and fluorescent in situ hybridization results. Further, transmission electron microscopic images of hUCB-treated shiverer mice brains showed several layers of myelin around the axons compared with a thin and fragmented layer of myelin in untreated animals. Moreover, the frequency of shivering was diminished 1 month after hUCB treatment in shiverer mice. Our results strongly indicated that hUCB transplantation could be an effective means of treating demyelinating or hypomyelinating disorders.
Highlights
Bone marrow represents the main source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for both experimental and clinical studies [1,2,3]
Similar band patterns were noticed for the myelin basic protein (MBP) gene when the cDNAs of control, WI-38-treated, and hUCB-treated samples were reverse transcribed followed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and agarose gel electrophoresis (Fig. 1B)
Densitometric analysis of the bands obtained in both Western blot and reverse transcription PCR indicated significant increase in expression of MBP compared with control and WI-38-treated samples (Fig. 1C, D)
Summary
Bone marrow represents the main source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for both experimental and clinical studies [1,2,3]. The MSCs derived from Wharton’s jelly of the umbilical cord have similar advantages, their culture expansion has a disadvantage, in that the cells cannot be frozen on the same day as hUCB arrive in the laboratory, and there is the increased risk of contamination with any culture manipulation [10]. Given these features along with their potent differentiation potential [11], hUCB are an attractive source for cellular or gene transfer therapy
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