Allogenic bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells and its conditioned media for repairing acute and sub-acute peripheral nerve injuries in a rabbit model

The present study evaluated healing potential of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) and BM-MSCs-conditioned medium (BM-MSCs-CM) for acute and subacute injuries in the rabbit peripheral nerve injury model. The regenerative capacity of MSCs was evaluated in 40 rabbits divided into eight groups, four groups each for acute and subacute injury models. BM-MSCs and BM-MSCS-CM were prepared by isolating allogenic bone marrow from the iliac crest. After inducing sciatic nerve crush injury, different treatments consisting of PBS, Laminin, BM-MSCs + laminin, and BM-MSCS-CM + laminin were used on the day of injury in the acute injury model and after ten days of crush injury in the subacute groups. The parameters studied included: pain, total neurological score, gastrocnemius muscle weight and volume ratio, histopathology of the sciatic nerve and gastrocnemius muscle, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Findings indicate that BM-MSCs and BM-MSCS-CM have augmented the regenerative capacity in acute and subacute injury groups with a slightly better improvement in the subacute groups than the animals in acute injury groups. Histopathology data revealed different levels of regenerative process undergoing in the nerve. Neurological observations, gastrocnemius muscle evaluation, muscle histopathology, and the SEM results depicted better healing in animals treated with BM-MSCs and BM-MSCS-CM. With this data, it could be concluded that BM-MSCs support the healing of injured peripheral nerves, and the BM-MSCS-CM does accelerate the healing of acute and subacute peripheral nerve injuries in rabbits. However, stem cell therapy may be indicated during the subacute phase for better results.