Mesenchymal stem cells effect on cortical and sensory neurons exposed to toxic stimuli

There are promising studies which demonstrate that Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) are able to release neutrophic factors, to increase neuronal survival and as a consequence to repair nervous damages. For these reasons MSCs based therapeutic approach was proposed for diseases of both central and peripheral nervous system. In order to evaluate a putative positive effect of MSCs on neuronal damage recovery, two different experimental models were set up using cortical and sensory neurons. The toxic stimuli used were: Glutamate, whose toxicity is associated to Multiple Sclerosis; Cisplatin and Paclitaxel, chemotherapic drugs, which induce peripheral neuropathies. For the evaluation of the effect of MSCs, direct and indirect co-cultures were set up with rat MSCs (rMSCs); rMSCs Conditioned Medium effect was also evaluated. Our results demonstrate an important difference between cortical and sensory neurons in fact in term of susceptibility cortical neurons are much more sensible to drugs treatment. About sensory neurons we observed a protective action in direct co-cultures on Cisplatin and Glutamate treated neurons and in indirect co-cultures on Paclitaxel treated neurons; conditioned medium didn’t have any protective action. However direct and indirect co-cultures and condition medium were unable to protect cortical neurons form toxic drugs. These data could indicate that a possible MSCs based therapy would be more promising for treating peripheral nervous system diseases rather than central one.