Effects of collagen membranes enriched with in vitro-differentiated N1E-115 cells on rat sciatic nerve regeneration after end-to-end repair

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2010

Authors

amado, s (Author) Other; rodrigues, jm (Author) FMUP; luis, al (Author) ICBAS; armada-da-silva, pas (Author) Other; vieira, m (Author) Other; gartner, a (Author) Other; simoes, mj (Author) Other; veloso, ap (Author) Other; fornaro, m (Author) Other; raimondo, s (Author) Other; varejao, asp (Author) Other; geuna, s (Author) Other; mauricio, ac (Author) ICBAS

Journal

Title: Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation

Vol. 7

Final page: 7

ISSN: 1743-0003

Publisher: Springer Nature

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 28 Citations

Scopus - 28 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Environmental biotechnology

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-003-955

DOI: 10.1186/1743-0003-7-7

Abstract (EN): Peripheral nerves possess the capacity of self-regeneration after traumatic injury but the extent of regeneration is often poor and may benefit from exogenous factors that enhance growth. The use of cellular systems is a rational approach for delivering neurotrophic factors at the nerve lesion site, and in the present study we investigated the effects of enwrapping the site of end-to-end rat sciatic nerve repair with an equine type III collagen membrane enriched or not with N1E-115 pre-differentiated neural cells. After neurotmesis, the sciatic nerve was repaired by end-to-end suture (End-to-End group), end-to-end suture enwrapped with an equine collagen type III membrane (End-to-EndMemb group); and end-to-end suture enwrapped with an equine collagen type III membrane previously covered with neural cells pre-differentiated in vitro from N1E-115 cells (End-to-EndMembCell group). Along the postoperative, motor and sensory functional recovery was evaluated using extensor postural thrust (EPT), withdrawal reflex latency (WRL) and ankle kinematics. After 20 weeks animals were sacrificed and the repaired sciatic nerves were processed for histological and stereological analysis. Results showed that enwrapment of the rapair site with a collagen membrane, with or without neural cell enrichment, did not lead to any significant improvement in most of functional and stereological predictors of nerve regeneration that we have assessed, with the exception of EPT which recovered significantly better after neural cell enriched membrane employment. It can thus be concluded that this particular type of nerve tissue engineering approach has very limited effects on nerve regeneration after sciatic end-to-end nerve reconstruction in the rat.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 13