PUBLICATION

The Neuronal Regeneration of Adult Zebrafish After Spinal Cord Injury Is Enhanced by Transplanting Optimized Number of Neural Progenitor Cells

Authors
Zeng, C.W., Sheu, J.C., Tsai, H.J.
ID
ZDB-PUB-200403-225
Date
2020
Source
Cell transplantation   29: 963689720903679 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Tsai, Huai-Jen
Keywords
cell transplantation, differentiation, hypoxia, proliferation, spinal cord injury, zebrafish
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Cell Proliferation/physiology
  • Neural Stem Cells/cytology*
  • Neural Stem Cells/physiology*
  • Recovery of Function/physiology
  • Spinal Cord Injuries/therapy*
  • Spinal Cord Regeneration/physiology
  • Zebrafish
PubMed
32233781 Full text @ Cell Transplant
Abstract
Cell transplantation is commonly used to study the regeneration and repair of the nervous system in animals. However, a technical platform used to evaluate the optimum number of transplanted cells in the recipient's spinal cord is little reported. Therefore, to develop such platform, we used a zebrafish model, which has transparent embryos, and transgenic line huORFZ, which generates green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing cells in the central nervous system under hypoxic stress. After GFP-expressing cells, also termed as hypoxia-responsive recovering cells, were obtained from hypoxia-exposed huORFZ embryos, we transplanted these GFP-(+) cells into the site of spinal cord injury (SCI) in adult wild-type zebrafish, followed by assessing the relationship between number of transplanted cells and the survival rate of recipients. When 100, 300, 500, and 1,000 GFP-(+) donor cells were transplanted into the lesion site of SCI-treated recipients, we found that recipient adult zebrafish transplanted with 300 donor cells had the highest survival rate. Those GFP-(+) donor cells could undergo proliferation and differentiation into neuron in recipients. Furthermore, transplantation of GFP-(+) cells into adult zebrafish treated with SCI was able to enhance the neuronal regeneration of recipients. In contrast, those fish transplanted with over 500 cells showed signs of inflammation around the SCI site, resulting in higher mortality. In this study, we developed a technological platform for transplanting cells into the lesion site of SCI-treated adult zebrafish and defined the optimum number of successfully transplanted cells into recipients, as 300, and those GFP-(+) donor cells could enhance recipient's spinal cord regeneration. Thus, we provided a practical methodology for studying cell transplantation therapy in neuronal regeneration of zebrafish after SCI.
Genes / Markers
Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping