Protective effect of bone morphogenetic protein-7 induced differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in acute spinal cord injury rat

Abstract

Abstract The principal aim of present study was to assess the therapeutic efficacy of bone morphogenetic protein-7 (BMP-7) induced bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) differentiation in rat acute spinal cord injury (SCI) model. BMSCs were isolated from rats, then divided into control and BMP7 induction groups. The proliferation ability of BMSCs and glial cell markers were detected. Forty Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into sham, SCI, BMSCs, and BMP7 + BMSCs groups (n = 10). The recovery of motor function of hind limbs of rats, the pathological, related markers and motor evoked potentials (MEP) were detected. BMSCs differentiated into neuron like cells after exogenous BMP7 intervention. Interestingly, the expression levels of MAP-2 and Nestin increased, while the expression GFAP level decreased after exogenous BMP7 intervention. BBB score reached 19.33 ± 0.58 in the BMP7 + BMSCs group at day 42. Nissl bodies in model group were reduced compared to sham group. After 42 days, both in the BMSCs and BMP7 + BMSCs groups, the number of nissl bodies were increased. Especially, the number of nissl bodies in the BMP7 + BMSCs group was more than that in BMSCs group. The expression of Tuj-1 and MBP in BMP7 + BMSCs group increased, while the expression of GFAP decreased. MEP waveform decreased significantly after surgery. The waveform was wider, the amplitude was higher in BMP7 + BMSCs group than that in BMSCs group. BMP7 promotes BMSCs proliferation, and induces BMSCs differentiate into neuron like cells, inhibits the formation of glial scar. BMP7 plays a confident role in the recovery of SCI rats.