Transplanted bone marrow stromal cells migrate, differentiate and improve motor function in rats with experimentally induced cerebral stroke

Bone marrow stromal cells are multipotential cells that can be induced to differentiate into osteoblasts, chondrocytes, myocytes and adipocytes in different microenvironments. Recent studies revealed that bone marrow stromal cells could improve neurological deficits of various damages or diseases of the central nervous system such as Parkinson's disease, brain trauma, spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis, and promote glia‐axonal remodeling in animal brain subjected to an experimentally induced stroke. In the present study, bone marrow stromal cells were intracerebrally transplanted into the cerebrum following a transient middle cerebral artery occlusion. Our aim was to find out whether the bone marrow stromal cells could survive and express neural phenotypic proteins and, in addition, whether they could restore the behavioral and functional deficits of the cerebral ischemic rats. Our results demonstrated that transplanted bone marrow stromal cells survived and migrated to areas around the lesion site. Some of them exhibited marker proteins of astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Bone marrow stromal cell implantation significantly reduced the transient middle cerebral artery occlusion‐induced cortical loss and thinning of the white matter and enhanced cortical β‐III‐tubulin immunoreactivity. Rats implanted with bone marrow stromal cells showed significant improvement in their performance of elevated body swing test and forelimb footprint analysis and only transient recovery of the adhesive‐removal test. Our data support bone marrow stromal cells as a valuable source of autologous or allogenic donor cells for transplantation to improve the outcome following cerebral ischemia.