An experimental study on repairing sciatic nerve defects of rats by human umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stem cells and acellular nerve basal lamina tube / 中华显微外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the feasibility of using human umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stem cells as seed cells to repair sciatic nerve defects of rats by tissue engineering methods. Methods Mesenchymal stem cells from human umbilical cord were cultured and induced into neuron-liked cells,which were co-cultured with acellular basal lamina tube to construct tissue engineering nerve;models of sciatic nerve defects 10 mm in length were set up with thirty healthy adult SD rats and were divided randomly into 3 groupstissue engineering nerve group (group A, compound of human umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stem cells and acellular basal lamina tube), pure acellular basal lamina tube group (group B), and autogenous nerve bridging group (group C). Evaluation of electrophysiological and histological results was carried out 10 weeks after operation. Results The engineering nerve group had good result in nerve regeneration which was close to the effect of autogenous nerve transfer group (group A), and much better than the effect of pure acellular basal lamina tube group. Conclusion Engineering nerves from human umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stem cells can effectively repair 10 mm defects of sciatic nerve.