Functional improvement of neuro in the transectional spinal cord seeded with rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells （rMSCs）

Objective Explore an approach with which stem cell can be used to cure traumatic spinal cord. Methods To better repair spinal cord injury, adult Sprague-Dawley （SD） rat MSCs was isolated and induced to differentiate into neuron-like cells with a Chinese medicine, Musk＇s polypeptide named Musk- 1 in vitro and be seeded into microsurgical transectional model of adult rat spinal cord with cell differentiation and transplantation techniques. Results After cell transplantation, animals seeded with the rMSCs-derived neuron-like cells promoted significant improvement in function after spinal cord （P〈0.05, effective observation for 90 days ） when compared to the lesion-control group. Histology and immunocytochemical analysis confirmed a large number of rMSCs-derived neuron-like cells survived well in the transplantation zoon and numerous cells migrated within the host adjacent tissues as far as 6 millimeters above and below the border of the lesion. Fluorescence gold retrograde tract tracing analysis revealed the positive motor neuron of fluorescence gold mark was found in the head side of rat spinal marrow ,corpus rubrum ofmesencephalic and corticospinal tract fibers.This suggested that corticospinal tract fibers of spinal cord area got regeneration and passed through the lession to reach the tail of spinal marrow. Conclusion These findings demonstrated that ＂pre-programmed＂ rMSCs can survive, migrate, integrate as well as restore spinal function and behavior in the microsurgical transectional model of rat spinal cord, and may serve as a suitable approach to traumatic spinal cord injury. Key words: MSCs;  Cell differentiation;  Spinal cord;  Cell transplantation