Tissue engineering spinal cord transplantation for treating rat spinal cord half-cut lump injury

Objective To investigate the effects of transplantation of tissue engineering spinal cord on spinal cord half-cut lump injury in rats.Methods Tissue engineering spinal cord was constructed in vitro by using PLGA(Poly lactic-co-glycolic acid)scaffold and neural stem cells.Animal model of a halfcut lump spinal cord was made in T10.The animals were divided into 3 groups randomly:experiment group transplanted with tissue engineering spinal cord,control group A injected with neural stem cells,and control group B positioned with scaffold.The effects of transplantation with tissue engineering spinal cord were evaluated by the BBB scale、HRP tracing technique and immunohistochemistry respectively.Results The average BBB SCales in the experiment group were higher than that in the control groups,and the differences had significance.Significant amount of HRP positive neurons were observed in the experiment group compared to the two control groups.Furthermore,immunohistoehemistry showed that more NF positive and GAP-43 positive nerve fibers exhibited in the vicinity of the injury region in the experiment group,less positive neurons and more fibers were distrihuted in the two control groups.Conclusion Transplantation of tissue engineering spinal cord can promote the structure repairing and functional recovery of half-cut lump spinal cord injury,and curative effect is better than transplantaion of neural stem cells or scaffold. Key words: Tissue engineering;  Neural stem cells;  Spinal cord injury