Cortical AAV-CNTF Gene Therapy Combined with Intraspinal Mesenchymal Precursor Cell Transplantation Promotes Functional and Morphological Outcomes after Spinal Cord Injury in Adult Rats

Figure 3

Functional hindlimb recovery promoted after AAV-CNTF gene therapy and cellular transplantation as assessed by Ladderwalk: reduced misstepping over the Ladderwalk apparatus indicates that AAV-CNTF^mCherry therapy (red, crosses) promoted significant functional improvement after SCI compared with control AAV-GFP treatment (green). Note that at day 14, the Ladderwalk testing was carried out prior to injection of either viable (blue) or nonviable (black) cells. Post hoc tests revealed statistically significant differences between the AAV-GFP-treated control group and AAV-CNTF^mCherry + nonviable rMPCs at all time points as well as between the AAV-GFP-treated control group and AAV-CNTF^mCherry + viable rMPCs at all time points except day 56 (, , and ). Two-way repeated measures ANOVA was conducted using PRISM (time: , treatment: , and interaction: ). Standard deviation is shown.