Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a condition that results in significant mortality and morbidity. Treatment of SCI utilizing stem cell transplantation represents a promising therapy. However, current conventional treatments are limited by inefficient delivery strategies of cells into the injured tissue. In this study, we designed a magnetic system and used it to accumulate stem cells labelled with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION) at a specific site of a SCI lesion. The loading of stem cells with engineered SPIONs that guarantees sufficient attractive magnetic forces was achieved. Further, the magnetic system allowed rapid guidance of the SPION-labelled cells precisely to the lesion location. Histological analysis of cell distribution throughout the cerebrospinal channel showed a good correlation with the calculated distribution of magnetic forces exerted onto the transplanted cells. The results suggest that focused targeting and fast delivery of stem cells can be achieved using the proposed non-invasive magnetic system. With future implementation the proposed targeting and delivery strategy bears advantages for the treatment of disease requiring fast stem cell transplantation.
For cell therapy, the number of transplanted cells that reach the injured area is one of the critical parameters. In this study, transplanted cells labelled with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) were guided by a magnetic field and successfully targeted near the lesion site in the rat spinal cord injury [1, 2]. Such magnetic systems with tuneable geometric parameters may provide an additional level of control needed to enhance the efficiency of stem cell delivery in spinal cord injury.
References
1. V: Vanecek, et al., Highly efficient magnetic targeting of mesenchymal stem cells in spinal cord injury. Int. J. Nanomed. (2012) 7: 3719.
2. D. Tukmachev, et al., An effective strategy of magnetic stem cell delivery for spinal cord injury therapy. Nanoscale (2015) 7: 3954.
