2020/09/28
Keio University School of Medicine
A group led by Professor Hideyuki Okano of the Department of Physiology and Professor Masaya Nakamura of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Keio University School of Medicine, along with Keita Kajikawa (a fourth-year student in the Doctoral Programs at the Graduate School of Medicine) and Project Assistant Professor Kento Imaizumi of the Department of Physiology, has successfully restored motor function in subacute phase spinal cord injury model mice. This was achieved by creating "spinal cord-type" neural stem/progenitor cells, which possess spinal cord regional information, from human iPS cells using a proprietary technique and transplanting them.
Previously, our research group had reported the effectiveness of transplanting human iPS cell-derived neural stem/progenitor cells for subacute spinal cord injury. In this study, however, we conducted a detailed investigation focusing on the regional information of these neural stem/progenitor cells. Using a new technique developed by our group, we transplanted and compared two types of neural stem/progenitor cells: spinal cord-type and forebrain-type, which originates from a different region. The results showed that while the group transplanted with forebrain-type cells had difficulty achieving motor function recovery, the group with spinal cord-type cells showed functional improvement. Furthermore, in the group transplanted with spinal cord-type neural stem/progenitor cells, the formation of neural circuits with the injured spinal cord was confirmed.
The results of this study have revealed that spinal cord-type cells are superior for the transplantation of human iPS cell-derived neural stem/progenitor cells. Based on these findings, the development of methods to induce safe neural stem/progenitor cells with spinal cord-type properties is anticipated in the future.
These research findings were published in the online edition of "Molecular Brain" on September 3, 2020 (U.S. Eastern Time).
For the full press release, please see below.