Ischemia, Inflammatory Response and Umbilical Stem Cells

We would like to send Kudos to Dr. Yan Xu and his colleagues at University of Pittburgh for their findings on inflammatory response in Golbal Ischemia. Their work was recently published:

Aaron Hirko, Renee Dallasen, Sachiko Jomura, Yan Xu. Modulation of Inflammatory Responses after Global Ischemia by Transplanted Umbilical-Cord Matrix Stem Cells. Stem Cells First published online August 21, 2008; doi:doi:10.1634/stemcells.2008-0075

Secondary to Cardiac Arrest is Brain Damage do to lack of blood flow. This is marked by a delayed loss of Neurons in CA1 hippocampus region of the brain due to inflammatory response.

The story timeline of this response is good then bad with interesting twists. The delay in neuronal loss is linked to initial inflammation. It involves both reactive astrocytes (astrocytosis) and glia. Delaying the loss is, of course, good.

...But then, the reactive astrocytosis and related glial scarring cause a physical and biochemical barrier to regeneration of neurons...a bad thing. Protecting the microglia is a good thing, because they these cells serve as scavengers for clearing the cellular debris. They can also secrete a variety of cytotoxic and protective chemicals.

The wow factor in this research is that implanted rat umbilical-cord matrix (RUCM) cells can provide partial protection against neuronal injury in rat brains. Rats treated with RUCM cells three days prior to an 8-min CA had only 25-32% neuronal loss in the hippocampal CA1 region compared to the typical 50-68% neuronal loss observed in the untreated or the vehicle-treated animals. This could be due to to the favaorable modulation of the "good-bad" inflammatory response.

The good news in the search for therapies for stroke and cardiac arrest victims is combined, stem-cell-like RUCM cells offer protection against neuronal injury after global cerebral ischemia by enhancing the survivability of the astroglia in the selectively vulnerable regions.

We are pleased that the research team used our GFAP antibody as an marker for astrotytic in their studies.