Can stem cells home to the injured intervertebral disc via intravenous infusion? A murine model

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Patients who suffer traumatic injury of the spine can also present with intervertebral disk injury, both of which are associated with low back pain (LBP). While conventional treatments mainly serve to alleviate pain, these treatments are not biological. Various biological therapies such as growth hormones/factors and cells have been studied for treatment of different conditions including that of IVD degeneration, which is also associated with LBP. In various animal models, such biological therapies have been demonstrated to slow or even reverse degeneration.1,2 The use of stem cells to treat injury is very promising due to their ability to regenerate and differentiate into other cell types—thus lies their potential to repair tissue damage. Of great interest is a population of cord-blood stem cells with expanded multipotency and mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-like properties.3 These cells are reported to home to injured sites after intravenous (IV) injection and are demonstrated in a rat spinal cord injury model to induce beneficial effects to injured rats.4 The use of such homing stem cells is advantageous as this could potentially bypass invasive surgery. We investigated the potential of these stem cells to aid IVD repair by determining (1) if these cells could home to injured IVD after intravenous infusion and (2) induce any ...