Adipose Tissue Graft Improves Early but not Late Stages of Nerve Regeneration

Abstract

Abstract. Aim Peripheral nerve injuries are a challenge for both the surgeon and the clinician, a challenge supported by the absence of evaluation markers for post-traumatic healing. This challenge is maintained due to the structural particularities and the difficulties of peripheral nerve biopsy sampling following surgical intervention. Currently, no serum marker that could be used as an evaluation biomarker for nerve regeneration is available; moreover; the correlation between motor rehabilitation and the morphological sequences that form the basis of this recovery have been very little studied and are poorly understood, most of them being rarely reported in experimental models of nerve regeneration.Protein S100 is specific and able to identify mature Schwann cells; neurofilament associated protein (NFAP) is applied for the identification of intra-axonal intermediate filaments. In the study of nerve regeneration, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) seems to mark reactive Schwann cells and is normally expressed only in the glial cells of the central nervous system. Very few clinical data and case reports are available regarding nerve regeneration tested through usage of GFAP. In pathology, GFAP is expressed in peripheral nerve sheath tumors (malignant schwannomas) (1). Recent studies that used rat experimental models have shown that differentiated Schwann-like stem cells from adipose tissue (AdSC) were positive for GFAP expression. Study of their morphological features have demonstrated that these AdSC-derived GFAP-positive cells exhibited a bipolar, tripolar and even multipolar structure, presented a single layer growth pattern, but were characterized by a flattened morphology, large dimensions and thin expansions (2). The majority of these cells proved to be highly proliferative in the aforementioned study, the percentage of such differentiated cells from the adipose tissue was over 95% (3). This study did not establish a correlation between the percentage of Schwann-like GFAP-positive cells and muscle volume restoration. Regarding this aspect, we considered the utility of the evaluation of the presence as well as the distribution of corresponding GFAP-positive cells in the muscle, taking into account that such an evaluation has not yet been reported in the scientific literature.NFAP marks intermediate filaments located in the inner part of a severed axon, thus being useful in the evaluation of postinjury nerve regeneration. This marker is not specific for regenerated filaments, but does represent a useful tool in the evaluation of nervous dynamic regeneration. The use of NFAP was reported in several studies, and was regarded as a quantitative marker for the rapidity of nerve regeneration in an inflammatory context (4), but also as an immunohistochemical 649 This article is freely accessible online.Correspondence to: Zorin Crăiniceanu,

Designing an ideal 3D-bioprint conduit for axonal repair and regeneration: a neurosurgical perspective

“…Similar to NSCs, ADSCs likely regenerate nerves via differentiation towards Schwann cells and subsequent release of trophic and neuroprotective factors (88). It is well documented that ADSC-populated conduits outperform empty conduits in several different nerve injuries (88,89). The downside to using ADSCs is the low risk for teratoma formation after Designing ideal 3D-bioprinting conduit differentiation into mesenchymal lineage (90).…”

Assessment of Nerve Repair Augmented with Adipose-Derived Mast Cells in an Animal Model

“…Nerve and gastrocnemius muscle biopsies were collected from both hind limbs (Figure 1). The authors used a similar model in a previous study [11]. Approximately 3 g of fat tissue was harvested from the inguinal area and centrifuged for 3 min at 3000 rpm (1008× g).…”