Can muscle-derived stem cells serve as seed cells to repair spinal cord injury?

摘要

Muscle-derived stem cells(MDSCs) can come from a number of different sources,which are easy to isolate and culture,and are also useful in the transformation and expression of exogenous genes.Therefore,MDSCs could possibly be used for gene therapy in the treatment of neurological diseases.However,research on MDSCs has focused on identifying phenotypes and induced differentiation,with few in vivo animal experiments conducted.In this study,MDSCs were selected as seed cells and implanted into the rat spinal cord injury area.Results demonstrated that the MDSCs survived,migrated,and were distributed along the spinal nerves.Moreover,the motor function of rat lower limbs improved significantly,suggesting that MDSCs could be used as seed cells to repair spinal cord injury.