Co-transplantation of hippocampal neural stem cells and astrocytes and microvascular endothelial cells improve the memory in ischemic stroke rat.

BACKGROUND Neural stem cells (NSCs) are promising for ischemia stroke because they can replace damaged or lost cells. However, the adult central nervous system (CNS) does not provide an optimal microenvironment for exogenous NSCs to survive, proliferation and differentiation. We established a co-transplantation system with NSCs and astrocyte and brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) to explore whether it can improve the memory ability in ischemic stroke rat. METHODS After building the ischemic stroke in 50 rats by middle cerebral artery occlusion and reperfusion (MCAO/R), transplantation of NSCs and astrocyte and BMECs were performed with different combination. RESULTS Laser doppler flowmetry and MRI were used to detect the ischemia of the model and 42 rats survived for the Morris water-maze test. The test shows that co-transplantation with the three different cells together can improve memory deficits in MCAO/R rat and it is the most effect group. Grafting with two cells have more effect in memory improving than one cell while transplanting NSC alone has no obvious effect on memory improving. CONCLUSIONS In NSC niche, astrocytes and BMECs are the most important cells to regulate and interaction with NSCs. Co-transplantation NSCs with astrocyte and BMECs can improve the memory ability in ischemia rat, which maybe the result of microenvironment improve by the astrocyte and BMECs.