Abstract
The disability rate of spinal cord injury (SCI) is extremely high, and stem cell inhibition is one of the most effective schemes in treating the spinal cord, but the survival rate is extremely low after stem cell transplantation, so it cannot be widely used in clinic. Studies have revealed that loading stem cells with biological scaffolds can effectively improve the survival rate and effect after stem cell transplantation. Therefore, this research was devised to analyze the repair effect of thiolated chitosan nanocarriers scaffold carrying de-epithelized human amniotic epithelial cells (HAECs) on SCI. And we used thiolated chitosan as nanocarriers, aiming to provide a reliable theoretical basis for future clinical practice. Through experiments, we concluded that the Tarlov and BBB scores of rats with SCI were raised under the intervention of thiolated chitosan carrying HAECs, while the inflammatory factors in serum, oxidative stress reaction in spinal cord tissue, apoptosis rate of nerve cells, and autophagy protein expression were all suppressed. Thus, the thiolated chitosan carrying HAECs may be applied to treat SCI by suppressing autophagy protein expression, oxidative stress response, and release of inflammatory factors in spinal cord tissue, which may be a new clinical therapy for SCI in the future. Even though we cannot understand exactly the therapeutic mechanism of thiolated chitosan carrying HAECs for SCI, the real clinical application of thiolated chitosan carrying HAECs needs to be confirmed by human experiments.
Highlights
spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the primary causes of limb dysfunction [1]
In control group (CG) and MG, rats were implanted with the same amount of physiological saline. e chitosan (500 mg) was obtained and mingled with 8 mL of hydrochloric acid (1 mol/L). en, the deionized water was supplemented to 50 mL, and 1.38 g of 1-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-3-ethyl carbodiimide hydrochloride was supplemented to continue. e pure thioglycollic acid (0.5 mL) was added and changed it to pH 5.0 with 2 mol/L sodium hydroxide
MTT assay revealed that the human amniotic epithelial cells (HAECs) curve with the intervention of thiolated chitosan was higher than that without intervention (P < 0.05, Figure 2)
Summary
SCI is one of the primary causes of limb dysfunction [1]. For the past few years, the incidence of SCI has been on the rise, with dozens to tens of thousands of new patients with SCI every year around the world, mainly due to traffic accidents, high-altitude falls, violence, or sports injuries [2,3,4]. SCI is usually treated conservatively in clinical practice, and drugs such as corticosteroids, gangliosides, scopolamine, and neurotrophy are commonly applied [7, 8]. It can relieve the SCI of patients, it is difficult to cure completely, and there are some toxic and side effects [9, 10]. As a kind of stem cell, HAECs have been proven to be effective in transplantation therapy for central nervous system diseases [11, 12]. The cell survival rate is extremely low through stem cell transplantation alone, which may not play an effective role in healing injury [16]. Sulfhydrylation of chitosan can further enhance the cell permeability of nanoparticles, which is beneficial to cell binding [22]. erefore, this research was devised to treat SCI by preparing de-epithelized human amniotic basement membrane and using thiolated chitosan as nanocarriers, aiming to provide a reliable theoretical basis for future clinical practice
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