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World J Exp Med. Aug 20, 2017; 7(3): 78-83
Published online Aug 20, 2017. doi: 10.5493/wjem.v7.i3.78
Multifunctional biomimetic spinal cord: New approach to repair spinal cord injuries
Yang Liu, Qian Li, Bin Zhang, De-Xiang Ban, Shi-Qing Feng
Yang Liu, Bin Zhang, De-Xiang Ban, Shi-Qing Feng, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin 300052, China
Qian Li, Department of Anesthesiology, Tianjin Central Hospital of Gynecology Obstetrics, Tianjin 300052, China
Author contributions: Liu Y, Li Q and Zhang B contributed equally to this work; all authors contributed to this paper.
Supported by State Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81330042; Special Program for Sino-Russian Joint, Research Sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, China, No. 2014DFR31210; Key Program Sponsored by the Tianjin Science and Technology Committee, China, No. 14ZCZDSY00044; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81201399; and National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81301544.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Shi-Qing Feng, PhD, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, No. 154, Anshan Road, Heping District, Tianjin 300052, China. sqfeng@tmu.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-22-60814739
Received: March 28, 2017
Peer-review started: March 29, 2017
First decision: April 17, 2017
Revised: May 26, 2017
Accepted: June 12, 2017
Article in press: June 13, 2017
Published online: August 20, 2017
Abstract

The incidence of spinal cord injury (SCI) has been gradually increasing, and the treatment has troubled the medical field all the time. Primary and secondary injuries ultimately lead to nerve impulse conduction block. Microglia and astrocytes excessively accumulate and proliferate to form the glial scar. At present, to reduce the effect of glial scar on nerve regeneration is a hot spot in the research on the treatment of SCI. According to the preliminary experiments, we would like to provide a new bionic spinal cord to reduce the negative effect of glial scar on nerve regeneration. In this hypothesis we designed a new scaffold that combine the common advantage of acellular scaffold of spinal cord and thermosensitive gel, which could continue to release exogenous basic fibroblast growth factor (BFGF) in the spinal lesion area on the basis of BFGF modified thermosensitive gel. Meanwhile, the porosity, pore size and material of the gray matter and white matter regions were distinguished by an isolation layer, so as to induce the directed differentiation of cells into the defect site and promote regeneration of spinal cord tissue.

Keywords: Spinal cord injuries, Glial scar, Hydrogel materials, Basic fibroblast growth factor, Acellular scaffold

Core tip: Traumatic spinal cord injury often leads to serious consequences and also adds great burden to families and society. Usually people believe that the regeneration of lost tissue is limited after central nervous system injury. Due to these reasons, we would like to provide a new bionic spinal cord to reduce the negative effect of glial scar on nerve regeneration. We design biomimetic spinal cord by the combination of basic fibroblast growth factor modified thermosensitive hydrogel and acellular spinal cord scaffold, which is conducive to the designation of a three-dimensional composite scaffold more suitable for cell growth, and corresponding mechanical properties and biodegradability more close to the structure of normal spinal cord.