Selected suitable seed cell, scaffold and growth factor could maximize the repair effect using tissue engineering method in spinal cord injury

Abstract

Spinal cord injury usually leads to permanent disability, which could cause a huge financial problem to the patient. Up to now there is no effective method to treat this disease. The key of the treatment is to enable the damage zone axonal regeneration and luckily it could go through the damage zone; last a connection can be established with the target neurons. This study attempts to combine stem cell, material science and genetic modification technology together, by preparing two genes modified adipose-derived stem cells and inducing them into neuron direction; then by compositing them on the silk fibroin/chitosan scaffold and implanting them into the spinal cord injury model, seed cells can have features of neuron cells. At the same time, it could stably express the brain-derived neurotrophic factor and neurotrophin-3, both of which could produce synergistic effects, which have a positive effect on the recovery of spinal cord. The spinal cord scaffold bridges the broken end of the spinal cord and isolates with the surrounding environment, which could avoid a scar effect on the nerve regeneration and provide three-dimensional space for the seed cell growth, and at last we hope to provide a new treatment for spinal cord injury with the tissue engineering technique.

Keywords: Tissue engineering; Seed cell; Scaffold; Growth factor; Spinal cord injury

Core tip: Spinal cord injury is a thorny disease to doctors. Tissue engineering including three core contents-seed cells, scaffolds and growth factors - is a promising method to cure this disease. Selecting suitable factors and maximizing the repairing effect is very important. This article is a hypothesis to choose the suitable factor which hopes to build up a promising method to treat spinal cord injury.