Effects of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell transplantation on ethology of rats with Alzheimer's disease

Haisheng LI; Zhenfeng CHEN; Haiying LI

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

Previous studies have shown that bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) may be a promising candidate for cell-replacement therapies for neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD). But, it is still unclear whether BMSCs have therapeutic effects on AD.

OBJECTIVE:

To investigate the influence of BMSC transplantation on ethology of rats with AD, and to find a potential strategy for the development of effective therapies for the treatment of AD.DESIGN, TIME AND

SETTING:

The randomized controlled study was performed at the Laboratory of the Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Medical College of Chinese People's Armed Police Force in March 2009.MATERIALS A total of 40 healthy male Wistar rats aged 24 months were used in this study, weighing approximately 450 g.

METHODS:

The natural senile AD rat model was chosen by maze test. The AD rats were randomly divided into four groups with ten animals in each group. In the control group, rats were injected bilaterally with physiological saline into the hippocampus. In the BMSC transplantation group, rats received BMSCs. In the normoxic differentiation and transplantation group, rats received injection of BMSCs induced from neuron-like cells under normoxic condition. In the hypoxic differentiation and transplantation group, rats received injection of BMSCs induced from neuron-like cells under hypoxic condition.MAIN OUTCOME

MEASURES:

The learning and memory ability of the AD rats were detected by Y type maze test 8 weeks later.Memory ability was tested 48 hours after learning test.

RESULTS:

The learning and memory scores decreased in control group and increased in BMSC transplantation group, there were all not statistics significance compared with that before transplant treatment (P > 0.05). The learning and memory scores were all higher than before in normoxic differentiation and transplantation group and hypoxic differentiation and transplantation group. There was significant difference between control group and the other groups (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION:

BMSC transplantation may improve the learning and memory ability of AD rats. Our results demonstrate that BMSCs not only play an important role in improving cognitive disturbance of AD rats. Oriented differentiated BMSC transplantation was superior to non-differentiated BMSCs. Transplantation of hypoxic differentiated BMSCs has obtained optimal outcomes.