Adult bone marrow contains stem cells that have attracted interest through their possible use for cell therapy in neurological diseases. Bone marrow stromal cells (MSCs) were harvested from donor adult rats, cultured and pre-labeled with bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) previously to be injected in the distal stump of transected sciatic nerve of the rats. Distal nerve stump of control rats received culture medium solution. MSCs-treated rats exhibit significant improvement on walking track test at days 18 and 33 compared to controls. Dual immunofluorescence labeling shows that BrdU reactive cells survive in the injected area of transected sciatic nerve at least 33 days after implantation, and almost 5% of BrdU cells express Schwann cell-like phenotype (S100 immunoreactivity). Because MSCs injected in a lesioned peripheral nerve can survive, migrate, differentiate in Schwann cells, and promote functional recovery, they may be an important source for cellular therapy in several neurological diseases.
Acidic and basic fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) share a wide range of diverse biological activities. To date, low levels of FGF have not been correlated with a pathophysiologic state. We report that blood vessels of spontaneously hypertensive rats are shown to be associated with a marked decrement in endothelial basic FGF content. This decrement correlates both with hypertension and with a decrease in the endothelial content of nitric oxide synthase. Restoration of FGF to physiological levels in the vascular wall, either by systemic administration or by in vivo gene transfer, significantly augmented the number of endothelial cells with positive immunostaining for nitric oxide synthase, corrected hypertension, and ameliorated endothelial-dependent responses to vasoconstrictors. These results suggest an important role for FGFs in blood pressure homeostasis and open new avenues for the understanding of the etiology and treatment of hypertension.Acidic and basic fibroblast growth factors (aFGF and bFGF, respectively) are homologous polypeptides (55% amino acid sequence identity) that were first isolated on the basis of their ability to induce mitogenesis on murine BALB/c 3T3 fibroblasts. aFGF was also isolated as an endothelial cell growth factor. It has become progressively evident that FGFs are mitogens of remarkably broad mitogenic activity. In fact, they induce cell division in almost all the mesoderm-and neuroectoderm-derived cell lines in culture. It has also been shown that these proteins share diverse hormone-like activities, including vasodilation. So far, no clear-cut differences have been found in the biological spectrum of activities of these polypeptides. FGFs have been also called heparin binding growth factors because of their characteristic high affinity for heparin and heparan sulfate (for reviews, see refs. 1-3). It has been shown in rats and rabbits that FGFs cause an acute vasodilation when they are administered systemically at the level of subnanomoles per kilogram of body weight (4). FGF-induced vasorelaxation is partially abrogated by inhibitors of the synthesis of nitric oxide (NO). Endothelial-derived NO is one of the most important regulators of vascular tone (5). The synthesis of NO is catalyzed in endothelial cells by a distinct, constitutive NO synthase (ecNOS; ref. 6).The spontaneously hypertensive (SH) rat strain was developed by Okamoto and Aoki (7) by mating a couple of SH rats from the normotensive Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) strain. In SH rats, hypertension develops quite abruptly between weeks 5 and 20 and worsens as they age. The developmental course of hypertension makes SH rats an adequate model of essential hypertension (8, 9). SH rats have been, consequently, the object of numerous studies. Deep neuroendocrine alterations that could cause blood pressure elevation have been described in these rats. Thus, alterations in the levels of vasoactive intestinal polypeptide, vasopressin, adrenergic amines, and angiotensin II have been reported (10-14). On the other hand, vascular hyp...
CD34+ cell population of human omentum could be responsible for the clinical benefit of omental transplantation by promoting angiogenesis and synthesizing angiogenic growth factors to facilitate revascularization of injured tissue.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.