title: Neural stem cells for spinal cord repair.
abstract: Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes the irreversible loss of spinal cord parenchyma including astroglia, oligodendroglia and neurons. In particular, severe injuries can lead to an almost complete neural cell loss at the lesion site and structural and functional recovery might only be accomplished by appropriate cell and tissue replacement. Stem cells have the capacity to differentiate into all relevant neural cell types necessary to replace degenerated spinal cord tissue and can now be obtained from virtually any stage of development. Within the last two decades, many in vivo studies in small animal models of SCI have demonstrated that stem cell transplantation can promote morphological and, in some cases, functional recovery via various mechanisms including remyelination, axon growth and regeneration, or neuronal replacement. However, only two well-documented neural-stem-cell-based transplantation strategies have moved to phase I clinical trials to date. This review aims to provide an overview about the current status of preclinical and clinical neural stem cell transplantation and discusses future perspectives in the field.
authors.affiliation: Spinal Cord Injury Center, Heidelberg University Hospital, Schlierbacher Landstrasse 200a, 69121 Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sandner
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Prang
authors.forename: Francisco J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Rivera
authors.forename: Ludwig
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Aigner
authors.forename: Armin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Blesch
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Weidner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D006801:Humans; D058953:Neural Stem Cells / Q000145:classification / Q000166:cytology / Q000637:transplantation*; D058630:Spinal Cord Regeneration / Q000502:physiology*; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation