سمیه حیدری زادی

Diabetes is a metabolic disease with high blood sugar levels. Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) are able to express various growth factors and integrin-linked kinase (ILK) plays an important role in regulating various processes of cells. In this study, we investigated the effects of silybinin on the expression of vascular-endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and ILK under normal and high glucose conditions in OECs.

In this study, OECs were extracted from the olfactory mucosa of neonatal rats and cultured. Low (1,5M) and high (50,75 µM) concentrations of silybinin were added to the cell culture media under normal and high glucose conditions. At the end of the study, we measured the expression of VEGF and ILK proteins using western blot technique. Data were analyzed by ANOVA test.

Under high glucose conditions, low concentrations of silybinin maintained expression and at high concentrations silybinin caused a dose-dependent decrease in ILK significantly. However, under high glucose conditions, low concentrations of silybinin significantly decreased expression of VEGF but high concentrations of silybinin caused a significant dose- dependent increase in VEGF expression.

High glucose condition increased ILK and VEGF expression in the OECs, and treatment with lower concentrations of silybinin maintained ILK expression and decreased VEGF expression. Therefore, it seems that lower concentrations of silybinin can be effective in protecting cells from cytotoxicity due to diabetes hyperglycemia by stabilizing ILK and reducing VEGF levels.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a serious clinical disorder, which involves the patient’s family as well as the community. After sever SCI, astrocytes of the central nervous system become reactive astrocytes, and produce glial scar which is a major obstacle to axons regeneration in the spinal cord. However, some studies have confirmed a spontaneous partial locomotor recovery in injured animals in the course of time and without any therapeutic interventions. Thus, in this study, locomotor function of animals with SCI was assessed to determine the exact scope of such a recovery through BBB (Basso, Bresnahan and Beattie) locomotor test during 20 weeks.
In this research, 18 adult male Wistar rats were used and randomly divided into 3equale groups: the normal control, the sham, the injured. Animals in the normal control group did not received any intervention, but for the sham and injured groups, laminectomy and contusion model in segment T10 of spinal cord were accomplished, respectively. Locomotor improvement of animals in all the groups was evaluated for 20 weeks.
Findings: According to our investigation, comparison of the results of locomotor assessment of the second week against that of the 20th week of the spinal cord injured group without treatment demonstrated a partial locomotor recovery, since the BBB score of lesion in these animals was 1.4 in the second week and reached up to 16 in the Twentieth week.
Discussion & Our Results showed that spontaneous locomotor recovery in animals with spinal cord defects increases after 20 weeks (from 16 21 score) in the course of time and without any therapeutic interventions

Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes constant irreversible functional deficits. Poor prognosis of such a disease prompts scientists to work on an effective way of treatment. Stem cell transplantation provides a promising strategy for such researchers. Using olfactory ensheathed cells (OECs) has, so far, indicated very good results. Hensce, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of transplanted OECs on functional recovery of delayed phase of SCI in rats.
In this survey, eighteen adult male wistar rats were divided into sham, control, vehicle, and treatment groups. Sham group received only laminectomy in the T9 segment of spinal cord, while in other groups, contusion model was induced following laminectomy.7 days after injury, DMEM medium alone or with OECs was injected to the vehicle and treatment groups, respectively. For cell culture, the olfactory mucosa of 7-day-old male wistar rats was used. Locomotor behavior of animals in all the groups was evaluated by BBB, (Basso, Bresnahan and Beattie) test.
Findings: Comparison of the results by the second week to the end of the study illustrated significant changing differences between the OECs receivers and the control group, (pDiscussion & Our investigation demonstrated a positive impact of the OECs on functional recovery in the delayed phase of SCI.