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Combination of bone marrow stromal cell transplantation with mobilization by granulocyte-colony stimulating factor promotes functional recovery after spinal cord transection

  • Experimental Research
  • Published:
Acta Neurochirurgica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in severe neurological deficit. However, the functional recovery following SCI is very poor due to the neural lost and limited axonal regeneration. To date, there was no effective treatment. Recent studies have shown that bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) transplantated into the central nervous system (CNS) can survive and differentiate into neuronal-like cells. Additionally, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) can mobilize hematopoietic stem cells and inhibit neural cell apoptosis. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the combined effect of BMSC transplantation and G-CSF administration on rats with traverse spinal cord injury.

Methods

BMSCs were cultured in vitro, labeled with Hoechst33342, and then transplanted into the lesion site with or without G-CSF administration (50 μg/kg/day) for 5 subsequent days. The groups included an untreated control, along with treatment by G-CSF alone, BMSCs alone, and G-CSF + BMSCs.

Results

In this study, by the end of eighth week after SCI injury, the animals in group treated with G-CSF + BMSCs showed higher BBB scores than the other two groups. Morphometric assessment showed that the lesion areas in the rats of the G-CSF + BMSCs group were much smaller. Compared with the control, BMSC, and G-CSF groups, less expression of apoptosis cells and more neural-cell markers around the spinal cord injury were found in rats treated with G-CSF + BMSCs.

Conclusions

The animals with the combination treatment achieved a better functional and morphologic recovery, although partial. This synergistic effect between BMSCs and G-CSF may be attributed to extrinsic and endogenous neurogenesis in the traverse spinal cord injury.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Liang-Chang Xiu, School of Public Health, Guangdong Medical College, for his diligent help on the statistic analysis. This study was supported by the grants from National Nature Science Foundation for Key projects of China (No. U0632008) and Key Fund of Guangdong Sci-Tech Research Projects [YUECAIJIAO(2008)258-(2008)A030201019, YEKEJIBAN (2007) 05/06-7005206]

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, 253 Gongye Road, Guangzhou, 510282, China

    Jie Luo, Hong-tian Zhang, Xiao-dan Jiang, Shan Xue & Yi-quan Ke

  2. Institute of Neurosurgery, Key Laboratory on Brain Function Repair and Regeneration of Guangdong, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510282, China

    Jie Luo, Hong-tian Zhang, Xiao-dan Jiang, Shan Xue & Yi-quan Ke

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  1. Jie Luo
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  2. Hong-tian Zhang
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Correspondence to Yi-quan Ke.

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Comments

This is an interesting paper with positive results. The authors demonstrate that, in a rat model, a combination of bone marrow stromal cells and growth factor can improve the functional and histological outcome after spinal cord injury. At present there are no therapies which improve outcome in patients after injury, but stem cell or reparative cell transplantations are a promising avenue which needs further evaluation at laboratory and translational level. Potential adult cell sources are particularly attractive candidates. However, whether these positive laboratory results translate to clinical practice is another matter, but it will be interesting to see how this develops.

David Choi

UK

Hong-tian Zhang and Jie Luo contributed equally to this study

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Luo, J., Zhang, Ht., Jiang, Xd. et al. Combination of bone marrow stromal cell transplantation with mobilization by granulocyte-colony stimulating factor promotes functional recovery after spinal cord transection. Acta Neurochir 151, 1483–1492 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-009-0402-6

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