Glowbrain – an in Vitro and in Vivo Platform for Studying the Regenerative Potential of the Murine Neural Stem Cell Applications in Repair of Ischemic Brain Injury

This study was supported by EU FP7 grant GlowBrain (REGPOT–2012–CT2012– 316120) to S.G. and by a University of Trento Startup Grant and the Cassa di Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto Grant n. 2011.0251 to S.C. Since the central nervous system shows very little capability for self-repair following ischemic injury, regenerative medicine approaches are increasingly interested in the use of neural stem cells (NSCs) for cell replacement strategies. Labelling NSCs with maghemite (γ-Fe2O3) nanoparticles allows direct in vivo tracking and imaging of NSCs during brain repair using medical imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging. In addition, application of biomaterials, such as alginate, represents an interesting tool to carry out cell replacement therapies. We reported in vitro NSCs viability and initial differentiation in alginate hydrogels. Furthermore, we investigated in vivo the potential of alginate hydrogels as support system for NSCs injection in the brain. Our preliminary in vivo results demonstrate the possibility to obtain injectable alginate hydrogels that crosslink once injected in the brain tissue. Inflammation profiles, obtained using TLR2-luc mouse reporter line after alginate injection, suggest that alginate presence is not harmful for the brain tissue. Taken together these findings show that alginate could be used as an efficient support for NSCs transplantation in the nervous system, able to increase cell survival and integration in an injury-affected brain. Moreover, using GlowBrain platform we reported that coating γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles with either poly(L-lysine) or D-mannose improves their biocompatibi-