Motor and sensory recovery following critical size peripheral nerve defects is often incomplete. Although nerve grafting has been proposed as the gold standard, it is associated with several disadvantages. Here we report a novel approach to peripheral nerve repair using Human Unrestricted Somatic Stem Cells (USSC) delivered through an electrospun neural guidance conduit. Conduits were produced from PCL and gelatin blend. Several in vitro methods were utilized to investigate the conduit's physicochemical and biological characteristics. Nerve regeneration was studied across a 10-mm sciatic nerve gap in Wistar rats. For functional analysis, the conduits were seeded with 3 × 104 USSCs and implanted into a 10-mm sciatic nerve defect. After 14 weeks, the results of functional recovery analysis and histopathological examinations showed that animals implanted with USSC containing conduits exhibited improved functional and histopathological recovery which was more close to the autograft group compared to other groups. Our results support the potential applicability of USSCs to treat peripheral nerve injury in the clinic.
Keywords: Electrospinning; Neural guidance conduits; Peripheral nerve regeneration; Unrestricted somatic stem cells.