Intervertebral Disc Injury Severity & Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Based Regeneration, 2008

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Pubmed:18293174


Connective Tissue Research, 49:15–21, 2008
Copyright (C) Informa Healthcare USA, Inc.

Effect of Severity of Intervertebral Disc Injury on Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Based Regeneration

Grace Ho a; Victor Y. L. Leung a; Kenneth M. C. Cheung a; Danny Chan b
a Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
b Department of Biochemistry, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) implantation has been shown previously to arrest disc degeneration. This study aims to assess the effect of severity of disc degeneration on the ability of MSCs to arrest the degeneration.

Disc degeneration was induced in New Zealand white rabbits at lumbar levels by annular puncture. The degeneration was allowed to progress for 1 month (early group) or 7 months (late group), followed by intradiscal injection of autologous MSCs. For disc levels that received MSCs treatment, 1 x 10(5) BrdU-labeled MSCs were injected per disc level.

For the early group, MSC-injection had no significant effects on disc height or the progression of disc degeneration.

For the late group, although the MSC-injected discs displayed lower disc heights than the control discs, they were significantly less degenerated together with near normal level of proteoglycan in localized areas.

This is the first pilot study to demonstrate that severity of degeneration can influence the therapeutic effect of MSCs. Future studies of cell-based intervertebral disc regeneration should be carefully controlled in the context of stage of disc degeneration.

"Conclusion
This study has demonstrated that the therapeutic potential of MSCs can be influenced by the severity of the disc degeneration induced by annulus puncturing.

Also under the direct injection approach MSCs appear to be more effective in arresting degeneration in intervertebral discs at a relatively later stage than an earlier stage of disc degeneration. Thus, the stage of degeneration is an important factor to be considered in the design and testing of future regeneration strategies for the discs when using MSCs, so that the full therapeutic effect is not overlooked."


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