Abstract:

BACKGROUND: At present, researches of stem cell transplantation for Parkinson’s disease (PD) animal model mainly utilize bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and embryonic stem cells. Researches of umbilical cord blood MSCs transplantation are relatively less, and there is no report regarding the change of striatal dopamine content before and after umbilical cord blood MSC transplantation.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of human umbilical cord blood MSCs transplantation on the dopamine content in PD rat striatum.

METHODS: The PD rat models were randomly divided into experimental (n=20) and control (n=20) groups. The third passage MSCs were marked by Hoechst33258, and stereotactically transplanted into experimental group, and the control group was given PBS. The brain tissue of PD rat was sectioned to identify the survival and migration of MSCs and the expression of neuron specific enolase (NSE), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), and synaptophysin under fluorescent microscope at weeks 2, 4 and 8. Dopamine in striatum was detected by high performance liquid chromatography at 8 weeks of transplantation.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Transplanted MSCs survived in the brain, distributed in striatum, callus, and cortex with increasing time, and expressed NSE, GFAP, and TH, but not synapsin. The content of dopamine was significantly increased than control group (P < 0. 05).