ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:The methylprednisolone pulse therapy in early period of spinal cord injury can attenuate the pathological degree of spinal cord injury, however no breakthrough was found within recent 20 years. OBJECTIVE:To observe the protection effects of sodium aescinate on the nerve cellapoptosis and expression of glial fibrial ary acidic protein (GFAP) in the early spinal cord injured rats. METHODS:Spinal cord injury models were established with the modified Al en’s method in 180 Sprague-Dawley rats, and were randomly divided into three groups, with 60 rats in each group. Immediately after injury, the rats in three groups were intraperitoneal y injected with sodium aescinate (5 mg/kg), methylprednisolone (100 mg/kg) and equal saline, respectively, once per day. At 8 hours, 24 hours, 96 hours and 7 days, 14 days after injury, rats were sacrificed and the injured segments were resected for hematoxylin-eosin staining and immunohistochemical staining, the nerve cellapoptosis and GFAP expression were detected. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:The apoptotic nerve cells were seen at 8 hours after injury and the number of apoptotic cells reached the peak at 7 days, the edema was attenuated at 14 days without less nerve cellapoptosis in al groups, significantly fewer apoptotic nerve cells can be seen in sodium aescinate and methylprednisolone groups compared with the control group (P0.05), which was lower than methylprednisolone group (P<0.05);after 96 hours, methylprednisolone group and sodium aescinate group were both significantly lower than control group (P<0.05). Furthermore, the decreasing expression was observed in al groups after 7 days. Sodium ascinate has obvious protection effects on nerve cells in spinal cord injured rats and promotes neurological function through decreasing GFAP expression after injury. The efficacy of sodium ascinate is equal to that of methylprednisolone within 2 hours.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells have potential to self-renewal and multi-lineage differentiation. But after a long period of culture in vitro, the proliferation and differentiation capacities of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells gradual y loss, the mechanism underlying which is not clear now. OBJECTIVE:To observe the expression of autophagy-related gene Beclin-1 in differentiation from human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells into neuron-like cells in vitro. METHODS:The changes of morphological characteristics of neuron-like cells differentiated from human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells induced by epidermal growth factor were observed. The expression of neuron-specific enolase and glial fibril ary acidic protein in treated and untreated human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells were detected using immunocytochemistry. The Beclin-1 protein expressions were detected by western blot before and after induction. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:After being induced, human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells presented classical neuron-like morphology;the expressions of neuron-specific enolase and glial fibril ary acidic protein were 78.7%and 8.1%, respectively. The expression of Beclin-1 protein was changed correspondingly during the induction, which increased after 30 minutes of induction and decreased gradual y after 1 hour of induction. Human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells could be induced into neuron-like cells in vitro by epidermal growth factor. Autophagy-related gene was highly expressed in the induction of early differentiation and the expression gradual y reduced until it remained at a low level during the differentiation.