Peripheral remyelination: evidence of a temporal window for Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cell transplantation

VANINA USACH; GONZALO PIÑERO; PAULA A, SOTO; MIJAEL ROZENSZAJN; ERIC GAMBERG; ALICIA CUETO; CLARA P. SETTON

Mar del Plata

Congreso; XXIX Congreso Anual Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias (SAN); 2015

Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias (SAN)

We have previously described the migration of bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMC) to the demyelinated area when systemically transplanted immediately after rat sciatic nerve crush. Once BMMC arrive at the ipsilateral nerve, some of them colocalize with Schwann cell and nerve fiber markers and accelerate the regeneration process.In this context, the aim of the present work was to determine the temporal window during which BMMC are able to migrate to the injured nerve and whether this migration is also accompanied by a beneficial effect. To such end, adult Wistar rats were submitted to sciatic nerve crush and transplanted with BMMC at different survival times post crush. Five days after transplantation, animals were sacrificed and immunohistochemical, Western Blot and functional studies were performed.Results show that BMMC were able to migrate to the ipsilateral nerve up to 28 days post crush, although the peak of migration occurred when BMMC were transplanted 7 days post crush, a crucial point in the demyelination process. In terms of MBP levels, cell transplantation promoted a faster recovery than in non-transplanted animals. Functional studies are being carried out to determine whether morphological recovery is accompanied by a functional one.The confirmation of a temporal window for BMMC treatment would open a promising field to evaluate the possible application of BMMC in therapies for neurodegeneration processes.