Combination of Acellular Nerve Allograft and Human Umbilical Wharton Jell Stem Cells to Bridge Rat Femoral Nerve Defect

Current gold standard for the treatment of peripheral nerve defect is autologous nerve grafting. However, autologous nerve grafting may not be possible in certain situations, under these circumstances, acellular nerve allografts can be used as alternatives. However, without cellular support, acellular nerve grafts often fail to provide optimal condition for axonal regeneration. Treatment effect might be much better if acellular nerve grafts were seeded with appropriate supporting cells. In the current study, to evaluate the applicability of acellular nerve grafts seeded with human umbilical cord Wharton jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hWJMSCs), acellular nerve grafts seeded with hWJMSCs were used to bridge rat femoral nerve defect and the treatment effect was evaluated comparing the weight of quadriceps femoris muscle, electrophysiological tests, retrograde labeling as well as transmission electron microscopic observations. Study results showed that acellular nerve grafts seeded with hWJMSCs achieved significantly better recovery comparing to that of acellular nerve graft without any cells in electrophysiological tests and electron microscopic observations (P < 0.05). No significant differences were found between the groups with retrograde labeling studies and weight of quadriceps femoris muscle (P > 0.05). Those results indicate that seeding acellular nerve grafts with hWJMSCs can be a potential method for future animal and clinical studies to repair peripheral nerve injury.