TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural stem cell-conditioned medium suppresses inflammation and promotes spinal cord injury recovery
AU - Cheng, Zhijian
AU - Bosco, Dale B.
AU - Sun, Li
AU - Chen, Xiaoming
AU - Xu, Yunsheng
AU - Tai, Wenjiao
AU - Didier, Ruth
AU - Li, Jinhua
AU - Fan, Jianqing
AU - He, Xijing
AU - Ren, Yi
PY - 2017/3/1
Y1 - 2017/3/1
N2 - Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes functional impairment as a result of the initial injury followed by secondary injury mechanism. SCI provokes an inflammatory response that causes secondary tissue damage and neurodegeneration. While the use of neural stem cell (NSC) engraftment to mitigate secondary injury has been of interest to many researchers, it still faces several limitations. As such, we investigated if NSC-conditioned medium (NSC-M) possesses therapeutic potential for the treatment of SCI. It has been proposed that many of the beneficial effects attributed to stem cell therapies are due to secreted factors. Utilizing primary cell culture and murine models of SCI, we determined that systemic treatment with NSC-M was able to significantly improve motor function and lesion healing. In addition, NSC-M demonstrated significant anti-inflammatory potential in vitro and in vivo, reducing inflammatory cytokine expression in both activated macrophages and injured spinal cord tissues. NSC-M was also able to reduce the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) within the spleen of injured animals, indicating an ability to reduce systemic inflammation. Thus, we believe that NSC-M offers a possible alternative to direct stem cell engraftment for the treatment of SCI.
AB - Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes functional impairment as a result of the initial injury followed by secondary injury mechanism. SCI provokes an inflammatory response that causes secondary tissue damage and neurodegeneration. While the use of neural stem cell (NSC) engraftment to mitigate secondary injury has been of interest to many researchers, it still faces several limitations. As such, we investigated if NSC-conditioned medium (NSC-M) possesses therapeutic potential for the treatment of SCI. It has been proposed that many of the beneficial effects attributed to stem cell therapies are due to secreted factors. Utilizing primary cell culture and murine models of SCI, we determined that systemic treatment with NSC-M was able to significantly improve motor function and lesion healing. In addition, NSC-M demonstrated significant anti-inflammatory potential in vitro and in vivo, reducing inflammatory cytokine expression in both activated macrophages and injured spinal cord tissues. NSC-M was also able to reduce the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) within the spleen of injured animals, indicating an ability to reduce systemic inflammation. Thus, we believe that NSC-M offers a possible alternative to direct stem cell engraftment for the treatment of SCI.
KW - Inflammation
KW - Macrophages
KW - Neural stem cell-conditioned medium (NSC-M)
KW - Spinal cord injury (SCI)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85014744857&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3727/096368916X693473
DO - 10.3727/096368916X693473
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85014744857
SN - 0963-6897
VL - 26
SP - 469
EP - 482
JO - Cell Transplantation
JF - Cell Transplantation
IS - 3
ER -