Objective To explore the effect of spinal neural progenitor transplantation to the cervical spinal on treating brachial plexus injury with the reimplantation of the avulsed spinal roots. Methods Thebrachial plexusavulsed injury model was made on 54 rats and they were evenly divided into 3 groups: fresh group, chronic group, control group. The spinal neural progenitor was cultured and identified. Then 10 μl（1×105/μl）cells were labelled with BrdUand transplanted into the fresh group (15 rats survived, being model for 1 week) and the chronic group (14 rats survived, being model for 2 months). No cell was transplanted into the control group. Two months after the transplantation, therecovery of function of the injured limb was evaluated. Electrophysiologic study and immunohistochemical study of the injured limb were made. Results Spinal neural progenitors were isolated from the spine and became neural sphere. The neural spheres were differentiated into neurons and astrocytes. Fourteen rats out of 15 in the fresh group were recovered, 7 rats out of 14 in the chronic groupwere recovered, and 5 rats out of 12 in the control group were recovered. Immunohistochemical study indicated that the transplanted progenitors in fresh group survived and differentiated into the neural cells, and the transplanted progenitors in chronic group existed and did not differentiate well. Conclusion Transplanted spinal neural progenitors can promote the recovery of the brachial plexus injury with the reimplantation of the avulsed spinal root.
The purpose of this study was to identify specific microRNAs (miRNAs) during differentiation and maturation of interneurons and to predict their possible functions by analyzing the expression of miRNAs during in vitro differentiation of the rat interneuron precursor cell line GE6. In the experiment, the interneuron precursor cell line GE6 was cultured under three different conditions, i.e. the first was that had not added growth factors and the normal differentiation cultured for 4 days (Ge6_4d); the second was that cultured with bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP2) for 4 days (Ge6_bmp2); and the third was that cultured with sonic hedgehog (SHH) for 4 days (Ge6_shh). In addition, another group of undifferentiated GE6 (Ge6_u) was applied as a control. We found in this study that the expression levels of a large number of miRNAs changed significantly during GE6 differentiation. The expression levels of miR-710, miR-290-5p and miR-3473 increased in the GE6 cells with secreted factor BMP2. These miRNAs may play important regulatory roles during interneuron differentiation.