Neural stem cells (NSCs) are multipotent self-renewing cells that could be used in cellular-based therapy for a wide variety of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's diseases (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and multiple sclerosis (MS). Being multipotent in nature, they are practically capable of giving rise to major cell types of the nervous tissue including neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. This is in marked contrast to neural progenitor cells which are committed to a specific lineage fate. In previous studies, we have demonstrated the ability of NSCs isolated from human olfactory bulb (OB) to survive, proliferate, differentiate, and restore cognitive and motor deficits associated with AD, and PD rat models, respectively. The use of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to enhance the survivability and differentiation potential of NSCs following their in vivo engraftment have been recently suggested. Here, in order to assess the ability of CNTs to enhance the therapeutic potential of human OBNSCs for restoring cognitive deficits and neurodegenerative lesions, we co-engrafted CNTs and human OBNSCs in TMT-neurodegeneration rat model. The present study revealed that engrafted human OBNSCS-CNTs restored cognitive deficits, and neurodegenerative changes associated with TMT-induced rat neurodegeneration model. Moreover, the CNTs seemed to provide a support for engrafted OBNSCs, with increasing their tendency to differentiate into neurons rather than into glia cells. The present study indicate the marked ability of CNTs to enhance the therapeutic potential of human OBNSCs which qualify this novel therapeutic paradigm as a promising candidate for cell-based therapy of different neurodegenerative diseases.

In the central nervous system (CNS), oligodendrocytes are the glial element in charge of myelin formation. Obtaining an overall presence of oligodendrocyte precursor cells/oligodendrocytes (OPCs/OLs) in culture from different sources of NSCs is an important research area, because OPCs/OLs may provide a promising therapeutic strategy for diseases affecting myelination of axons. The present study was designed to differentiate human olfactory bulb NSCs (OBNSCs) into OPCs/OLs and using expression profiling (RT-qPCR) gene, immunocytochemistry, and specific protein expression to highlight molecular mechanism(s) underlying differentiation of human OBNSCs into OPCs/OLs. The differentiation of OBNSCs was characterized by a simultaneous appearance of neurons and glial cells. The differentiation medium, containing cAMP, PDGFA, T3, and all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA), promotes OBNSCs to generate mostly oligodendrocytes (OLs) displaying morphological changes, and appearance of long cytoplasmic processes. OBNSCs showed, after 5 days in OLs differentiation medium, a considerable decrease in the number of nestin positive cells, which was associated with a concomitant increase of NG2 immunoreactive cells and few O4(+)-OPCs. In addition, a significant up regulation in gene and protein expression profile of stage specific cell markers for OPCs/OLs (CNPase, Galc, NG2, MOG, OLIG1, OLIG2, MBP), neurons, and astrocytes (MAP2, β-TubulinIII, GFAP) and concomitant decrease of OBNSCs pluripotency markers (Oct4, Sox2, Nestin), was demonstrated following induction of OBNSCs differentiation. Taken together, the present study demonstrate the marked ability of a cocktail of factors containing PDGFA, T3, cAMP, and ATRA, to induce OBNSCs differentiation into OPCs/OLs and shed light on the key genes and pathological pathways involved in this process.

The histological analysis of local and imported beef samples throughout storage at various intervals in 4 °C, before and after being frozen at − 18 °C, to detect the changes happened in the microstructure of muscle fibers to evaluate the meat nutritive properties in a step toward rapid evaluation of meat quality. The obtained results illustrated that freezing–thawing step of beef leads to the loss of its muscle fiber structure due to the high moisture content failure, highlighted the idea that imported beef show significant shrinkage in their muscle fibers from the beginning of its purchase to consumers as they seem to be imported as frozen and thawed just before exposed and sold as fresh. Through consumption survey, however consumers prefer local meat, it was detected that 67% of population is eating imported beef with 39.4% more than twice per week. Therefore, consumers’ minds should be changed to depend on locally slaughtered beef on facing their needs of the recommended daily intake of protein.

Autoimmune diseases play a critical role in the progression of infertility in both sexes and their severity has been reported to increase with age. However, few reports have discussed their effect on the morphological features of the testis. Therefore, we compared the morphological alterations in the testes of autoimmune model mice (MRL/MpJ-Faslpr) and the control strain (MRL/MpJ) with those of their background strain (C57BL/6N) at 3 and 6 months. Furthermore, we analyzed the changes in spermatocytes, Sertoli cells, immune cells, and Zonula occludens-1 junctional protein by immunohistochemical staining. The MRL/MpJ-Faslpr mice showed a significant increase in the serum Anti-double stranded DNA antibody level, relative spleen weight, and seminiferous luminal area when compared with other studied two strains. In contrast, a significant decrease in the relative testis weight, and numbers of both Sertoli, meiotic spermatocyte was observed in MRL/MpJ-Faslpr and MRL/MpJ mice compared with C57BL/6N mice especially at 6 months. Similarly, Zonula occludens-1 junctional protein positive cells showed a significant decrease in the same strains at 6 months. However, no immune cell infiltration could be observed among the studied three strains. Our findings suggest that the increase in autoimmune severity especially with age could lead to infertility through loss of spermatogenic and Sertoli cells, rather than the disturbance of the blood–testis barrier.

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Human olfactory bulb neural stem cells (OBNSCs) are multipotent cells that are capable of differentiation into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. In the present study, we investigated the ability of human OBNSCS to differentiate into oligodendrocytes using RT-PCR and immunocytochemistry. In the presence of fetal calf serum, all-trans retinoic acid (RA), triiodothyronine (T3), and cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), OBNSCS were differentiated into oligodendrocytes precursors as evidenced by induction and repression of oligodendrocytes chondroitin sulphate proteoglycan (NG2) and nestin genes, respectively. These finding were confirmed at the protein level using fluorescent immunocytochemistry (FICC) according to standard protocol. Taken together, the present study highlighted the ability of OBNSC to differentiate into oligodendrocytes, a finding that indicates their possible use as a promising candidate for cell-based therapy for neurodegenerative and traumatic diseases associated with myelin impairments. Abbreviations: Human olfactory bulb neural stem cells (OBNSCs), retinoic acid (RA), triiodothyronine (T3), cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), pro-oligodendrocytes chondroitin sulphate proteoglycan (NG2), immunocytochemistry (FICC).