ABSTRACT
Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes axonal damage and demyelination, neural cell death, and comprehensive tissue loss, resulting in devastating neurological dysfunction. Neural stem/progenitor cell (NSPCs) transplantation provides therapeutic benefits for neural repair in SCI, and glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) has been uncovered to have capability of stimulating axonal regeneration and remyelination after SCI. In this study, to evaluate whether GDNF would augment therapeutic effects of NSPCs for SCI, GDNF-encoding or mock adenoviral vector-transduced human NSPCs (GDNF-or Mock-hNSPCs) were transplanted into the injured thoracic spinal cords of rats at 7 days after SCI. Grafted GDNF-hNSPCs showed robust engraftment, long-term survival, an extensive distribution, and increased differentiation into neurons and oligodendroglial cells. Compared with Mock-hNSPC- and vehicle-injected groups, transplantation of GDNF-hNSPCs significantly reduced lesion volume and glial scar formation, promoted neurite outgrowth, axonal regeneration and myelination, increased Schwann cell migration that contributed to the myelin repair, and improved locomotor recovery. In addition, tract tracing demonstrated that transplantation of GDNF-hNSPCs reduced significantly axonal dieback of the dorsal corticospinal tract (dCST), and increased the levels of dCST collaterals, propriospinal neurons (PSNs), and contacts between dCST collaterals and PSNs in the cervical enlargement over that of the controls. Finally grafted GDNF-hNSPCs substantially reversed the increased expression of voltage-gated sodium channels and neuropeptide Y, and elevated expression of GABA in the injured spinal cord, which are involved in the attenuation of neuropathic pain after SCI. These findings suggest that implantation of GDNF-hNSPCs enhances therapeutic efficiency of hNSPCs-based cell therapy for SCI.
Subject(s)
Animals , Humans , Rats , Axons , Cell Death , Cell Movement , Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy , Cicatrix , Demyelinating Diseases , gamma-Aminobutyric Acid , Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor , Hyperalgesia , Myelin Sheath , Neuralgia , Neurites , Neuroglia , Neurons , Neuropeptide Y , Paraplegia , Pyramidal Tracts , Regeneration , Spinal Cord Injuries , Spinal Cord , Therapeutic Uses , Transplants , Voltage-Gated Sodium ChannelsABSTRACT
We saw a case of minoxidil induced pericardial effusion in a 36 years old female who developed generalized edema, weakness and hypertrichosis after taking minoxidil for 1 year. Her chest PA showed globular shaped cardiac enlargement and pulmonary congestion. Echocardiography of the heart showed moderate amount of pericardial effusion. 10 days later after cessation of the drug administration and conservative managements, her chest PA showed marked improvement of heart size and pulmonary congestion. 20 days later her blood pressure became normal with the continued use of other antihypertensive drugs.