Stem cell therapy is an emerging therapeutic modality in the treatment of stroke. We assessed the safety and feasibility of the cotransplantation of neural stem/progenitor cells (NSPCs) and mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) in patients with ischemic stroke. Eight patients were enrolled in this study. All patients had a hemisphere with infarct lesions located on one side of the territories of the cerebral middle or anterior arteries as revealed with cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The patients received one of the following two types of treatment: the first treatment involved four intravenous injections of MSCs at 0.5 × 10 6 /kg body weight; the second treatment involved one intravenous injection of MSCs at 0.5 × 10 6 /kg weight followed by three injections of MSCs at 5 × 10 6 /patient and NSPCs at 6 × 10 6 /patient through the cerebellomedullary cistern. The patients' clinical statuses were evaluated with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), the modified Rankin Scale (mRS), and the Barthel index (BI). Six patients were given four cell transplantations. The most common side effect of stem cell transplantation in these six cases was low fever that usually lasted 2-4 days after each therapy. One patient exhibited minor dizziness. All side effects appeared within the first 2-24 h of cell transplantation, and they resolved without special treatment. There was no evidence of neurological deterioration or neurological infection. Most importantly, no tumorigenesis was found at a 2-year follow-up. The neurological functions, disability levels, and daily living abilities of the patients in this study were improved. While these observations support the use of the combination transplantation of NSPCs and MSCs as a safe and feasible method of improving neurological function, further studies that include larger samples, longer follow-ups, and control groups are still needed. This manuscript is published as part of the International Association of Neurorestoratology (IANR) special issue of Cell Transplantation.
BackgroundEpidemiological and clinical studies have demonstrated comorbidity between migraine and affective disorders. However, it is unclear whether chronic migraine can lead to affective disorders in other animals.MethodsA classical chronic migraine rat model (repeated dura mater inflammatory soup [IS] infusion) was used to evaluate depression and anxiety behaviour via weight, sucrose preference test, open field test and elevated plus maze test.ResultsWe found that sucrose preference, locomotor and rearing behaviours, inner zoon distance percent, open-arm entries percent and serotonin and dopamine levels in the prefrontal cortex decreased significantly in the IS group compared with those in the control group; co-administration of low-dose amitriptyline ameliorated these deficits. However, no differences in weight, inner zone time percent, or open-arm time percent between the IS and control groups. These results were used to create new depression and anxiety scales to comprehensively assess and evaluate the degree of affective disorders in rats. Most of chronic migraine animals showed depression and anxiety like behaviors but a few didn’t.ConclusionsMost of the chronic migraine rats were present depression and anxiety like behaviors. The new scales we created are expected to use in the future studies to find out the potential mechanism of affective disorders’ comorbidity.
Lateral flow immunoassay
(LFIA) is widely used but is limited by
its sensitivity. In this study, a novel centrifugation-assisted lateral
flow immunoassay (CLFIA) was proposed that had enhanced sensitivity
compared to traditional LFIA based on test strips. For CLFIA, a vaulted
piece of nitrocellulose membrane was prepared and inserted into a
centrifugal disc. Powered by the centrifugal force, the sample volume
on the disc was not limited and the flow rate of the reaction fluid
was steady and adjustable at different rotation speeds. It was found
that lower rotation speeds and larger sample volumes resulted in greater
signal intensity in the nitrocellulose membrane as well as higher
sensitivity, indicating that the actively controlled flow on the disc
allowed for sensitivity enhancement of CLFIA. To operate CLFIA on
the centrifugal disc, a portable and cost-effective operating device
was constructed to rotate the disc with a stepper motor and collect
the results with a smartphone. The proposed method was successfully
applied to detect prostate specific antigen (PSA) in human serum.
Standard curves were established for CLFIA and LFIA, and both had
correlation coefficients of up to 0.99. Under optimal conditions (1500
rpm rotation speed, 120 μL sample volume), the detection limit
of CLFIA reached 0.067 ng/mL, showing a 6.2-fold improvement in sensitivity
compared to that of LFIA. With clinical serum samples, a good correlation
was observed between PSA concentrations measured by CLFIA and by a
bulky commercial instrument in hospital. In summary, this portable,
cost-effective, and easy-to-use system holds great promise for biomarker
detection with enhanced sensitivity compared to traditional LFIA.
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