About MSC

One of the adults in cell types is the MSC (Mesenchymal Stromal Cell). This type of cell is found in the bone marrow and all other tissues. Example it is found around blood vessels and is important in initiating repair of blood vessels after cuts and other injuries. These cells are mostly present in a resting state and needs to be "turned on" to produce repair. MSC’s do not exist or act alone; they live in between other cells in what is called a niche. They also interact with numerous other cell types to move around the body and aid in injury repair. These other cell types are essential for the cells to grow, divide and function efficiently. An understanding of how all the many cell types interact is essential to enable us to utilize the best cells for injury repair and get the best possible results.

In the research laboratory of the Spinal Cord Society we have collected bone marrow from donors and isolated the MSC population from the whole marrow. We have studied these cells and their ability to turn into fat, bone and cartilage cells. The change to these cell types is an indication of the normal ability of these cells in the human body. We have worked with cells from a number of different donors and discovered some differences between cells from different people.

Most laboratories use a cocktail of growth factors taken from animal blood, which the cells must have to grow and divide. These cocktails are a potential source of contamination and infection and so we are designing a culture system where we can grow the cells without animal products. This culture system will allow us to grow cells so that we have enough cells to be effective when transplanted back into the patient and will allow us to ensure that the cells are healthy and of good quality.

We will continue to work on the culture system so that we can grow cells from any donor efficiently and have a good idea of exactly what the system contains (a defined or partially defined system). We will also continue to investigate the abilities of these cells to change into different cell types and investigate how these cells interact with other cell types to aid in injury repair.

Other Cells of Interest

In the near future we will begin culture of the olfactory tissue, a layer of cells lining the upper nose. This layer contains many cell types, including some MSC’s. We will study this tissue because we are interested in two types of cells:

• Olfactory Ensheathing Cells (OEC’s) which play an important role in supporting the regrowth and replacement of nerve cells that provide the sense of smell. At any one time, about 1% of our olfactory nerve cells are being replaced. The OEC's have also been shown in animal research studies to improve repair after spinal cord injury.
• We are also interested in Olfactory Nerve Stem Cells (NSC’s) that are present in the olfactory epithelium – the covering layer of cells over this tissue. As stem cells are able to produce many mature cells it will be of interest to see whether these cells can be used as a source of new nerve cells in treating spinal cord injury.

Olfactory tissue has been used in trials of Spinal Cord Repair by Dr Carlos Lima (in Portugal) with encouraging results. We will collect and culture the tissue for study so that we can begin to understand the individual cells which make up the tissue and understand how they work together to enable new nerve fibres to grow. This work will enable us to select the best cells for repair after spinal cord injury. It will permit us to study how MSC’s and cells from the nose (OEC’s and NSC’s) can be used together to get better results for patients with spinal cord injury.