Protective effect of transplantation of human oligodendrocyte precursor cells in a rat model of white matter injury

To study the effect of human oligodendrocyte precursor cell (hOPC) transplantation in the treatment of white matter injury (WMI). Neonatal rats were randomly divided into a sham-operation group, a model group, and a transplantation group ( =10 each). At the age of 3 days, the rats in the model group and the transplantation group were treated with right common carotid artery ligation, followed by hypoxia for 2 hours, to prepare a rat model of WMI. hOPCs were isolated from a spontaneously aborted human fetal brain at week 11 of gestation, and then hOPCs were cultured and transplanted into the rats with WMI. At 3 months after transplantation, the water maze test was performed to evaluate neurological function, and an electron microscope was used to observe myelin sheath thickness and proliferation. The place navigation test using the Morris water maze showed that the model group had a significantly longer escape latency than the sham-operation group, and compared with the model group, the transplantation group h