CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Peripheral traumatic injuries constitute a problem of public health with high prevalence worldwide. Current therapeutic approaches fail to restore the normal nerve functions, which is why the development of new therapies is of great importance.Adult stem cell therapies have provided encouraging outcomes in nerve regeneration. A major obstacle is to secure enough cells at the injured site to warrant therapeutic effects. To tackle this issue, we proposed a strategy combining adipose derived mesenchymal stem cells (AdMSC) loaded with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) and their mobility enhanced by the application of an external magnetic field gradient (magnetic targeting, MT).The aim of the present work was to test whether magnetic targeting can help AdMSC-SPIONs reach specific tissue and thus improve the regenerative ability of AdMSC upon sciatic nerve lesion.To this end, AdMSC, SPIONs, and SPIONs internalized by AdMSC were extensively characterized. AdMSC-SPIONs arrival and retention at the injured nerve were evaluated through microscopy and magnetometry. Finally, cell transplantation effects on regeneration were assessed both in terms of nerve morphology and nerve impulse conduction.AdMSC arrival to the injured nerve was significantly increased using MT and their beneficial effects surpassed the regenerative properties of the stand-alone cell therapy. AdMSC-SPIONs group showed many intact myelinated axons. Also, a very remarkable restoration in myelin basic protein organization, indicative of remyelination, was observed. This resulted in an improvement in nerve conduction values [1]In short, our results prove that magnetic targeting of AdMSC-SPIONS constitutes a novel and valuable tool to promote nerve regeneration by enhancing AdMSC arrival at the lesion site, in the peripheral nerve system

enviar mensaje