Background and aim: Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) are one of the sources of adult stem cells being explored for potential use in repairing neurodegenerative disorders. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the useful effects of BM-MSCs therapy on the streptozotocin-induced neurodegeneration in rats.
Materials and methods: Adult female Wistar rats were bilaterally injected intra-cerebroventricularly with streptozotocin (3 mg/kg) for neurodegeneration. Water maze tests were used to monitor spatial learning and memory. One or two intravenous injections of BM-MSCs were administrated to rat via the tail veins. At the end of the study, all rats were sacrificed for histological evaluation and immunohistochemistry.
Results: Streptozotocin group demonstrated a significant increase in escape latency in comparison with both control groups (Sham and Saline), whereas rats treated with BM-MSCs exhibited a decrease in escape latency in comparison with streptozotocin group. The percentage of time spent in the target quadrant and the mean number of platform crossings did not change in all the groups. BM-MSCs administration improved spatial learning but not memory. However, improvement in neuronal cells in hippocampal CA1 region was only observed in the rats treated with BM-MSCs twice as opposed to the rats treated with BM-MSCs once or with saline.
Conclusions: In this study, mesenchymal stem cells therapy failed to improve the streptozotocin-induced neurodegeneration like Alzheimer's disease in rats.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Experimental model; Mesenchymal stem cell; Neurodegeneration.