Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Also Included In: Stem Cell Research
Article Date: 07 Oct 2013 – 0:00 PDT
University of South Florida (USF Health)
“Stem Cell Recruitment of Newly Formed Host Cells via a Successful Seduction? Filling the Gap between Neurogenic Niche and Injured Brain Site;” Naoki Tajiri, Yuji Kaneko, Kazutaka Shinozuka, Hiroto Ishikawa, Ernest Yankee, Michael McGrogan, Casey Case, and Cesar V. Borlongan; PLOS ONE 8(9): e74857. Published Sept. 4, 2013. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0074857
Written by Anne DeLotto Baier
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At three months post-traumatic brain injury, the brains of transplanted rats showed massive cell proliferation and differentiation of stem cells into neuron-like cells in the area of injury, the researchers found. This was accompanied by a solid stream of stem cells migrating from the brain’s uninjured subventricular zone – a region where many new stem cells are formed – to the brain’s site of injury.
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To date, there have been two widely-held views on how stem cells may work to provide potential treatments for brain damage caused by injury or neurodegenerative disorders. One school of thought is that stem cells implanted into the brain directly replace dead or dying cells. The other, more recent view is that transplanted stem cells secrete growth factors that indirectly rescue the injured tissue.
The researchers then conducted a series of experiments to examine the host brain tissue.
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The USF study presents evidence for a third concept of stem-cell mediated brain repair.
University of South Florida researchers have suggested a new view of how stem cells may help repair the brain following trauma. In a series of preclinical experiments, they report that transplanted cells appear to build a “biobridge” that links an uninjured brain site where new neural stem cells are born with the damaged region of the brain.
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In contrast, the rats receiving solution alone showed limited proliferation and neural-commitment of stem cells, with only scattered migration to the site of brain injury and virtually no expression of newly formed cells in the subventricular zone. Without the addition of transplanted stem cells, the brain’s self-repair process appeared insufficient to mount a defense against the cascade of traumatic brain injury-induced cell death.
The researchers randomly assigned rats with traumatic brain injury and confirmed neurological impairment to one of two groups. One group received transplants of bone marrow-derived stem cells (SB632 cells) into the region of the brain affected by traumatic injury. The other (control group) received a sham procedure in which solution alone was infused into the brain with no implantation of stem cells.
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