Transplantation of neural stem progenitor cells from different sources for severe spinal cord injury repair in rat

Neural stem progenitor cell (NSPC) transplantation has been regarded as a promising therapeutic method for spinal cord injury (SCI) repair. However, different NSPCs may have different therapeutic effects, and it is therefore important to identify the optimal NSPC type. In our study, we compared the transcriptomes of human fetal brain-derived NSPCs (BNSPCs), spinal cord-derived NSPCs (SCNSPCs) and H9 embryonic stem-cell derived NSPCs (H9–NSPCs) in vitro and subsequently we transplanted each NSPC type on a collagen scaffold into a T8-9 complete SCI rat model in vivo. In vitro data showed that SCNSPCs had more highly expressed genes involved in nerve-related functions than the other two cell types. In vivo, compared with BNSPCs and H9–NSPCs, SCNSPCs exhibited the best therapeutic effects; in fact, SCNSPCs facilitated electrophysiological and hindlimb functional recovery. This study demonstrates that SCNSPCs may be an appropriate candidate cell type for SCI repair, which is of great clinical significance.