Cryopreservation of Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cells Alters Their Viability and Subpopulation Composition but Not Their Treatment Effects in a Rodent Stroke Model.

The systemic administration of autologous bone marrow (BM) derived mononuclear cells (MNCs) is under investigation as a novel therapeutic modality for the treatment of ischemic stroke. Autologous applications raise the possibility that MNCs could potentially be stored as a banked source. There have been no studies that investigate the effects of cryopreservation of BM-MNCs on their functional abilities in stroke models. In the present study, C57BL/6 mice were subjected to middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo) for 60 minutes and then divided into two treatment groups: fresh MNCs versus cryopreserved MNCs. BM-MNCs were collected at 22 hours after MCAo and were stored in liquid nitrogen for 12 months in cryopreserved MNCs group. BM-MNCs cellular viability, composition, and phenotype of the various subpopulations of mice BM-MNCs were evaluated by flow cytometry, and the behavioral recovery of stroke animals was tested with freshly harvested MNCs versus cryopreserved MNCs by corner test and ladder rung test. We found that long-term cryopreservation negatively impacts the cellular viability of bone marrow MNCs. Cryopreservation also alters the cellular composition of various subpopulations within the MNCs. However, despite the changes observed in cryopreserved cells, both fresh and frozen MNCs have similar beneficial effect on behavioral and histological outcomes.

Various Cell Populations Within the Mononuclear Fraction of Bone Marrow Contribute to the Beneficial Effects of Autologous Bone Marrow Cell Therapy in a Rodent Stroke Model.

Cell-based therapies including bone-marrow derived mononuclear cells (MNCs) are now widely being studied because of their pleotropic effects and promising results to improve recovery after stroke in animal models. Unlike other types of cell therapies, MNCs is a mixture of lymphoid, myeloid, erythroid, and stem cell populations. Which cell population(s) accounts for the beneficial effects of MNCs in stroke recovery is unclear. In this paper, we employed a mouse stroke model with middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo), and used positively and negatively sorted autologous MNCs by MACs to determine which fractions of the MNCs contribute to their beneficial effects. We evaluated the benefits of neurofunctional recovery produced by individual cell lineages within MNCs in a long-term observation study up to 28 days after stroke. Mortality and modulation of inflammation were also compared among different sub-populations. We further studied the impact of neurotoxicity posed by activated microglia in the presence of different cell lineages within MNCs. We concluded that myeloid cell lineage and stem cell/progenitors appeared to be important components within MNCs that contribute to improved outcomes after stroke.

Autologous Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cells Exert Broad Effects on Short- and Long-Term Biological and Functional Outcomes in Rodents with Intracerebral Hemorrhage.

Autologous bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (MNCs) are a potential therapy for ischemic stroke. However, the effect of MNCs in intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) has not been fully studied. In this study, we investigated the effects of autologous MNCs in experimental ICH. ICH was induced by infusion of autologous blood into the left striatum in young and aged male Long Evans rats. Twenty-four hours after ICH, rats were randomized to receive an intravenous administration of autologous MNCs (1 × 10(7) cells/kg) or saline. We examined brain water content, various markers related to the integrity of the neurovascular unit and inflammation, neurological deficit, neuroregeneration, and brain atrophy. We found that MNC-treated young rats showed a reduction in the neurotrophil infiltration, the number of inducible nitric oxide synthase-positive cells, and the expression of inflammatory-related signalings such as the high-mobility group protein box-1, S100 calcium binding protein B, matrix metalloproteinase-9, and aquaporin 4. Ultimately, MNCs reduced brain edema in the perihematomal area compared with saline-treated animals at 3 days after ICH. Moreover, MNCs increased vessel density and migration of doublecortin-positive cells, improved motor functional recovery, spatial learning, and memory impairment, and reduced brain atrophy compared with saline-treated animals at 28 days after ICH. We also found that MNCs reduced brain edema and brain atrophy and improved spatial learning and memory in aged rats after ICH. We conclude that autologous MNCs can be safely harvested and intravenously reinfused in rodent ICH and may improve long-term structural and functional recovery after ICH. The results of this study may be applicable when considering future clinical trials testing MNCs for ICH.

Validation and scopolamine-reversal of latent learning in the water maze utilizing a revised direct platform placement procedure.

The Morris water maze is routinely used to explore neurobiological mechanisms of working memory. Humans can often acquire working memory relevant to performing a task by mere sensory observation, without having to actually perform the task followed by reinforcement. This can be modeled in the water maze through direct placement of a rat on the escape platform so that it can observe the location, and then assessing the subject's performance in swimming back to the platform. However, direct placement procedures have hardly been studied for two decades, reflecting a controversy about whether direct placement resulted in sufficiently rapid and direct swims back to the platform. In the present study, utilizing revised training methods, a more comprehensive measure of trajectory directness, a more rigorous sham-trained control procedure and an optimal placement-test interval, rats swam almost directly back to the platform in under 4s, significantly more quickly and directly than sham-trained subjects. Muscarinic cholinergic mechanisms, which are inactivated by scopolamine, are essential to memory for standard learning paradigms in the water maze. This experiment determined whether this would also be true for latent learning. ANOVA revealed significant negative effects of scopolamine on both speed and accuracy of trajectory, as well as significant positive effects of direct placement training vs. sham-training. In a probe trial, placement-trained animals without scopolamine spent significantly more time and path length in the target quadrant than trained rats with scopolamine and sham-trained rats without scopolamine. Scopolamine impairments are likely due to effects on memory, since the same dose had little effect on performance with a visible platform. The revised direct placement model offers a means of further comparing the neural mechanisms of latent learning with those of standard instrumental learning.

Intra-arterial delivery is not superior to intravenous delivery of autologous bone marrow mononuclear cells in acute ischemic stroke.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (MNCs) are an investigational autologous cell-based therapy for acute ischemic stroke. Both intravenous (IV) and intra-arterial (IA) administration routes have been used in clinical trials. However, the route of administration to optimize the effect of MNCs is unknown. In this study, we compared the effect of IV versus IA route of administration of MNCs in the rat stroke model. METHODS: Long Evans rats were subjected to transient middle cerebral artery occlusion. At 24 hours after stroke, animals were randomly assigned to receive autologous bone marrow-derived MNCs using either the IV or IA delivery route. IV saline served as control. One million cells/kg (low dose) and 30 million cells/kg (high dose) were assessed. Neurological testing, cavity size, serum cytokines, neuroregenerative end points, and MNC biodistribution were evaluated. RESULTS: High-dose MNCs improved functional recovery, reduced lesion size and proinflammatory cytokines, and increased vessel density and neurogenesis markers compared with saline treatment (P<0.05). However, there were no significant differences between IV and IA MNC-treated groups, although IV MNCs reduced serum interleukin-1ß levels compared with IA MNCs (P<0.05). IA MNCs at high dose led to a greater number of cells in the brain at 1 and 6 hours after injection but not in the lungs and spleen. Low-dose MNCs (by IV or IA) did not improve any functional or structural end point compared with saline. CONCLUSIONS: At low and high doses of MNCs, we found that IV or IA achieves similar structural and functional outcomes after stroke.

Nitric oxide facilitates delivery and mediates improved outcome of autologous bone marrow mononuclear cells in a rodent stroke model.

BACKGROUND: Bone marrow mononuclear cells (MNC) represent an investigational treatment for stroke. The objective of this study was to determine the relevance of vasoactive mediators, generated in response to MNC injection, as factors regulating cerebral perfusion (CP), the biodistribution of MNC, and outcome in stroke. METHODS: Long Evans rats underwent transient middle cerebral artery occlusion. MNC were extracted from the bone marrow at 22 hrs and injected via the internal carotid artery or the femoral vein 2 hours later. CP was measured with MRI or continuous laser Doppler flowmetry. Serum samples were collected to measure vasoactive mediators. Animals were treated with the Nitric Oxide (NO) inhibitor, L-NAME, to establish the relevance of NO-signaling to the effect of MNC. Lesion size, MNC biodistribution, and neurological deficits were assessed. RESULTS: CP transiently increased in the peri-infarct region within 30 min after injecting MNC compared to saline or fibroblast control. This CP increase corresponded temporarily to serum NO elevation and was abolished by L-NAME. Pre-treatment with L-NAME reduced brain penetration of MNC and prevented MNC from reducing infarct lesion size and neurological deficits. CONCLUSIONS: NO generation in response to MNC may represent a mechanism underlying how MNC enter the brain, reduce lesion size, and improve outcome in ischemic stroke.

Functional assessments in the rodent stroke model.

Stroke is a common cause of permanent disability accompanied by devastating impairments for which there is a pressing need for effective treatment. Motor, sensory and cognitive deficits are common following stroke, yet treatment is limited. Along with histological measures, functional outcome in animal models has provided valuable insight to the biological basis and potential rehabilitation efforts of experimental stroke. Developing and using tests that have the ability to identify behavioral deficits is essential to expanding the development of translational therapies. The present aim of this paper is to review many of the current behavioral tests that assess functional outcome after stoke in rodent models. While there is no perfect test, there are many assessments that are sensitive to detecting the array of impairments, from global to modality specific, after stroke.