Clinical Trial of Human Fetal Brain-Derived Neural Stem/Progenitor Cell Transplantation in Patients with Traumatic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury

Figure 6

Direct transplantation of hNSPCs into the injured thoracic spinal cord (T9) of adult Sprague-Dawley rats with contusive SCI showed robust long-term engraftment and extensive migration of donor-derived cells and induced host axonal growth along engrafted cells. At 12 weeks after transplantation, immunohistochemistry was conducted in the sectioned spinal cord tissues using anti-human nuclei marker (hNuc) and anti-NF and visualized with fluorescein or Texas red-labeled secondary antibodies. Many hNuc-positive cells (colored red) survived and migrated extensively to rostral and caudal parts of the injury site, including the spared tissue surrounding the lesion. Multiple neuronal processes expressing NF (colored green) extended over the engrafted human cells, as indicated by arrows. Scale bar: 200 μm.