Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 569, 21 May 2014, Pages 12-17
Neuroscience Letters

Mesenchymal stromal cells integrate and form longitudinally-aligned layers when delivered to injured spinal cord via a novel fibrin scaffold

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2014.03.023Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • MSCs can be delivered to injured spinal cord through use of a fibrin scaffold.

  • Scaffold-delivered MSCs form longitudinally-aligned layers over the lesion site.

  • Regenerating axons enter scaffold-delivered grafts and grow longitudinally.

  • MSCs delivered via injection orient perpendicular to the plane of the spinal cord.

  • Regenerating axons in injected grafts grow perpendicular to the plane of the cord.

Abstract

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have been shown to promote healing and regeneration in a number of CNS injury models and therefore there is much interest in the clinical use of these cells. For spinal cord injuries, a standard delivery method for MSCs is intraspinal injection, but this can result in additional injury and provides little control over how the cells integrate into the tissue. The present study examines the use of a novel fibrin scaffold as a new method of delivering MSCs to injured spinal cord. Use of the fibrin scaffold resulted in the formation of longitudinally-aligned layers of MSCs growing over the spinal cord lesion site. Host neurites were able to migrate into this MSC architecture and grow longitudinally. The length of the MSC bridge corresponded to the length of the fibrin scaffold. MSCs that were delivered via intraspinal injection were mainly oriented perpendicular to the plane of the spinal cord and remained largely restricted to the lesion site. Host neurites within the injected MSC graft were also oriented perpendicular to the plane of the spinal cord.

Keywords

Spinal cord injury
Mesenchymal stromal cells
Cell scaffold
Fibrin

Abbreviations

MSCs
mesenchymal stromal cells
EDC
N-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-N-ethyl-carbodiimide hydrochloride
NHS
N-hydroxysuccinimide

Cited by (0)

1

Both authors contributed equally to this manuscript.