ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate cerebral functional remodeling of the rat with severe acute carbon monoxide poisoning transplanted with neural stem-like cells derived from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MS-NSCs) . Method Forty Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 200 ～ 250 g were divided randomly into 4 groups: the normal control group, the poisoning control group, the bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells(BMSCs) transplantation group and the MS-NSCs transplantation group. BMSCs were harvested from whole bone marrow in vitro, then were differentiated into MS-NSCs under certain growth factors cocktail,and were followed by BrdU labelling.Twenty-four hours after poisoning, the seed cells were infused into brain via left internal carotid and the functional remodeling of cerebrum was assessed by neurological severity score(NSS) and Morris water maze(MWM) tests. Results There was no significant differences in NSS test between groups after transplantation. However, the differences in MWM test were very significant between 5 weeks after transplantation ( P < 0.01). Conclusions Transplantation of MS-NSCs may improved cerebral function of rats after severe acute CO poisoning. Moreover, the cultured and idfferentiated MS-NSCs induced in vitro preliminarily is potentially more efficient than directly transplanted BMSCs without culture and differentiation.