Feasibility of tracking bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in a rat model of epilepsy

LONG Qianfa; LIU Weiping; GAO Jianzhong; LUO Qiang; HEI Yue; YI Xicai

Abstract：Objective The feasibility of real time tracking of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) in a rat model of epilepsy is explored.Methods BMSCs were isolated from 4 SD rats and labeled with ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) nanoparticles,and then the epileptic models were induced by Pilocarpine and received USPIO labeled BMSCs (U-BMSCs) administration.After that,MRI was performed to detect the U-BMSCs imaging in vitro and in vivo,as well as the distribution of U-BMSCs in a rat model of epilepsy.Finally,the neuroprotection of U-BMSCs on the epilepsy-induced hippocampal neuronal loss was verified by immunohistochemistry.Results Prussian blue staining results showed the uptaken efficiency of USPIO in BMSCs was 99.20％ + 1.24％.In vitro study manifested that U-BMSCs displayed as darker signal in MRI T2W2,and in vivo study showed that the darker signal distinguished from brain or cerebrospinal fluid imaging was observed in the right lateral after U-BMSCs transplantation for 24 h.After cell transplantation for 2 w,the darker signals of U-BMSCs were observed in the cortex,hippocampus and other areas of the brain.Furthermore,immunohistochemistry results showed that U-BMSCs transplantation prevented the neuronal loss in CA1 and dentate gyrus hilus (DH) of the hippocampus in comparison to PBS group (P ＜ 0.01),and no significant difference (P ＞ 0.05) was shown between U-BMSCs and BMSCs transplantation in the epileptic model.Conclusion USPIO labeling BMSCs can be detected in vivo using MRI and do not affect their neuroprotection in a rat model of epilepsy.