Chitosan-based thermosensitive scaffold loaded with bone marrow derived Mesenchymal stem cells promotes the motor function recovery in spinal cord injured mice.

Spinal cord injury is a devastating trauma with high mortality and disability, for which there is no effective treatment. Stem-cell based tissue engineering has been reported to promote neural functional recovery. Presently, building a neural scaffold with excellent biocompatibility for cells and tissues is still challenging. In this study, a new thermosensitive composite hydrogel based on chitosan, hydroxyethyl cellulose, collagen, and β-phosphoglycerate (CS-HEC-Col/GP hydrogel) is developed to encapsulate murine bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSC) for improving the therapeutic efficacy of spinal cord injury mice. This composite hydrogel possesses a good cytocompatibility to mice BMSC by the Live/Dead staining, minimized inflammatory reaction in vivo by hematoxylin and eosin staining, and suitable rheological behavior similar with neural tissue ranging from 100 to 1000 Pa. Furthermore, the animal experiments data indicated that BMSC loaded CS-HEC-Col/GP hydrogel could enhance the survival or proliferation of endogenous nerve cells probably by secreting neurotrophic factors and inhibiting apoptosis, and thereby promote the recovery of motor function in hind limbs of murine spinal cord injury model.