Human mesenchymal stem cells prevent neurological complications of radiotherapy

Radiotherapy is a highly effective tool for the treatment of brain cancer. However, radiation also causes detrimental effects in the healthy tissue, leading to neurocognitive sequelae that compromise the quality of life of brain cancer survivors. Despite the recognition of this serious complication, no satisfactory solutions exist at present. Here we investigated the effects of intranasal administration of human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSCs) as a neuroprotective strategy for cranial radiation in mice. Our results demonstrated that intranasally delivered hMSCs promote radiation-induced brain injury repair, improving neurological function. The molecular analysis revealed that hMSC administration reduces persistent activation of damage-induced c-AMP response element-binding signaling in the irradiated neurogenic niches. Furthermore, hMSC treatment did not compromise survival of glioma-bearing mice. Our findings encourage the therapeutic use of hMSCs as an effective and non-invasive approach to prevent neurological complications of radiotherapy, improving the quality of life of brain tumor survivors. The periventricular tissue of the brain lateral ventricles (PLv) and the hippocampus (Hipp) of irradiated and non-irradiated nude mice transplanted or not with human mesenchimal stem cells (MSC) was used for microarray analyses.