Therapeutic potential of human mesenchymal stem cells in a sporadic Alzheimer rat model

ZAPPA VILLAR MF; MOREL G; TRÍPODI LS; GARCÍA MG; REGGIANI PC

Congreso; XXX Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2015

Alzheimer disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, is characterized by the degeneration of neurons and reduced brain glucose metabolism, as well as by the progressive decline of cognitive function. Our aim is to develop therapeutic strategies, cell therapy, for preventing and/or overcoming the degenerative changes in the brain with experimental AD (EAD). To this aim, we first set up a model of sporadic AD with the intracerebroventricular injection of streptozotocin (STZ-icv) in young male rats; and second, we explored the therapeutic effect of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) in this animal model. Three experimental groups were used: (N=6/group): sham, STZ and STZ+MSC. STZ and STZ+MSC groups received 3 mg/kg STZ-icv and, 24 hours after, STZ+MSC group received 1x105 human bone marrow-derived MSC (hMSC). We assessed hippocampus-dependent learning and spatial memory by the Barnes maze test and recognition memory by Novel Object Recognition test (NOR). After 24 days, we proceeded to the euthanasia. STZ group showed less preference for goal region in the Barnes test (P=0.054 vs. sham), and in NOR test they explored 43% familiar vs. 57% new object (not significant).  MSC treated animals have shown an improvement in their spatial memory (P<0.01 vs. STZ), and recognition memory (36% familiar vs. 64% new object, P<0.05). In this first study we concluded that cell therapy ameliorates cognitive deficits in this AD model.