Co-culture with vascular endothelial progenitor cells:effects on proliferation and apoptosis of neural stem cells and vascular remodeling in rats with ischemia reperfusion injury / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Neural stem cel (NSC) transplantation is a common method for various ischemicencephalopathies, but inability to survive in the transplantation region limits its further use in clinical practice. OBJECTIVE:To explore the effect of vascular endothelial progenitor cel s (VEPCs) on the proliferation and apoptosis of co-cultured NSCs as wel as vascular remodeling in rats with ischemia reperfusion injury. METHODS:125 Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into five groups, 25 rats in each group, including sham operation, ischemia, NSCs, co-culture, and VEPCs groups. Rat models of ischemia reperfusion injury were made in al groups except for the sham operation group, fol owed by corresponding interventions. The proliferation and apoptosis of neural stem cel s were detected, and vascular remolding in the ischemic region was observed in each group. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:At different time points after transplantation, BrdU positive cel s were not observed in VEPCs, ischemia and sham operation groups;the number of BrdU positive cel s in the co-culture group was significantly higher than that in the NSCs group (P<0.05);BrdU+/Caspase-3+cel were observed in both co-culture and NSCs groups, and the apoptosis rate of the co-culture group was significantly lower than that in the NSCs group (P<0.05);there were new blood vessels in al the groups except for the sham operation group, and the number of new bone vessels was highest in the co-culture group. To conclude, our experimental results show that VEPCs promotes the proliferation of co-cultured NSCs, inhibits cel apoptosis and and promote angiogenesis in the ischemic penumbra of rats with ischemia reperfusion injury.