Study design: Experimental animal study.
Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effects of treatment with human neural stem cell (HNSC) secretomes on subacute spinal cord injury (SCI) post-laminectomy by analyzing interleukin-10 (IL-10), matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9), transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), and Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan (BBB) score locomotors as expressions of neurological recovery.
Overview of literature: In the United States, SCI has a recovery rate of 0.08%, tetraplegia 58.7%, and paraplegia 40.6%. Therapeutic approaches to SCI have focused on modulating the secondary cascade to prevent neurological deterioration and glial scar formation. Increasing evidence has shown that the success of cell-based SCI therapy is attributed to the secretomes rather than the cells themselves, but the effect of treatment with HNSC secretomes in SCI is unclear.
Methods: This experimental study investigated 15 Rattus norvegicus rats that were divided into three groups: (1) normal, (2) SCI+nonsecretome, and (3) SCI+secretome (30 μL, intrathecal Th10). Model subacute SCI post-laminectomy was performed in 60 seconds using an aneurysm Yasargil clip with a closing forceps weighing 65 g (150 kdyn). At 35 days post-injury, the specimens were collected, and the immunohistochemicals of IL-10, MMP9, and TGF-β were analyzed. Motor recovery was evaluated based on the BBB scores.
Results: The SCI post-laminectomy of rats treated with HNSC secretomes showed improvements in their locomotor recovery based on the BBB scores (p =0.000, mean=18.4) and decreased MMP9 (p =0.015) but had increased the levels of IL-10 (p =0.045) and TGF-β (p =0.01).
Conclusions: These results indicate that the factors associated with the HNSC secretomes can mitigate their pathophysiological processes of secondary damage after SCI and improve the locomotor functional outcomes in rats.
Keywords: Interleukin-10; Locomotors; Matrix metalloproteinase 9; Secretome; Transforming growth factor-β.