Transplantation of neural stem progenitor cells from different sources for rat severe spinal cord injury repair

Neural stem progenitor cells (NSPCs) transplantation therapy has been widely studied for spinal cord injury (SCI) and is regarded as a promising therapeutic method. However, transplantation of different kinds of NSPCs may lead to totally different therapeutic effects. Therefore, identification of an optimal type of NSPCs for SCI repair is an important consideration. In our study, we compared the transcriptome data of human fetal brain derived NSPCs (BNSPCs), spinal cord derived NSPCs (SCNSPCs) and H9 embryonic stem cells derived NSPCs (H9-NSPCs) in vitro and subsequently transplanted each type of NSPCs combined with collagen scaffolds into rat T8-9 complete spinal cord transection model. In vitro RNA-seq data showed that SCNSPCs group had obviously more numbers of highly expressed genes involved in nerve related functions, like neuron differentiation, myelination, synapse organization, neurotransmitter secretion, axon extension and axonogenesis. In vivo results were in accordance with in vitro data. Compared with BNSPCs and H9-NSPCs group, SCNSPCs group exhibited the best therapeutic effects in neuronal differentiation, myelination, synapse formation and neurotransmitter secretion. Furthermore, transplantation of SCNSPCs could facilitate SCI rats electrophysiological and hindlimb motor function recovery. Our study manifested that SCNSPCs may be an appropriate candidate cell type for SCI repair and for future translational work.