Combination Cell Therapy with Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Neural Stem Cells for Brain Stroke in Rats

OBJECTIVES Brain stroke is the second most important events that lead to disability and morbidity these days. Although, stroke is important, there is no treatment for curing this problem. Nowadays, cell therapy has opened a new window for treating central nervous system disease. In some previous studies the Mesenchymal stem cells and neural stem cells. In this study, we have designed an experiment to assess the combination cell therapy (Mesenchymal and Neural stem cells) effects on brain stroke. METHOD AND MATERIALS The Mesenchymal stem cells were isolated from adult rat bone marrow and the neural stem cells were isolated from ganglion eminence of rat embryo 14 days. The Mesenchymal stem cells were injected 1 day after middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) and the neural stem cells transplanted 7 day after MCAO. After 28 days, the neurological outcomes and brain lesion volumes were evaluated. Also, the activity of Caspase 3 was assessed in different groups. RESULT The group which received combination cell therapy had better neurological examination and less brain lesion. Also the combination cell therapy group had the least Caspase 3 activity among the groups. CONCLUSIONS The combination cell therapy is more effective than Mesenchymal stem cell therapy and neural stem cell therapy separately in treating the brain stroke in rats.