Comparison of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Isolated From Murine Adipose Tissue and Bone Marrow in the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury

The use of mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) transplantation to repair the injured spinal cord has shown consistent benefits in preclinical models. However, the low survival rate of grafted MSC is one of the most important problems. In the injured spinal cord, transplanted cells are exposed to hypoxic conditions and exposed to nutritional deficiency caused by poor vascular supply. Also, the transplanted MSCs face cytotoxic stressors that cause cell death. The aim of this study was to compare adipose-derived MSCs (AD-MSCs) and bone marrow-derived MSCs (BM-MSCs) isolated from individual C57BL6/J mice in relation to: (i) cellular characteristics, (ii) tolerance to hypoxia, oxidative stress and serum-free conditions, and (iii) cellular survival rates after transplantation. AD-MSCs and BM-MSCs exhibited a similar cell surface marker profile, but expressed different levels of growth factors and cytokines. To research their relative stress tolerance, both types of stromal cells were incubated at 20.5% O2 or 1.0% O2 for 7 days. Results showed that AD-MSCs were more proliferative with greater culture viability under these hypoxic conditions than BM-MSCs. The MSCs were also incubated under H2O2-induced oxidative stress and in serum-free culture medium to induce stress. AD-MSCs were better able to tolerate these stress conditions than BMMSCs; similarly when transplanted into the spinal cord injury region in vivo, AD-MSCs demonstrated a higher survival rate post transplantation Furthermore, this increased AD-MSC survival post transplantation was associated with preservation of axons and enhanced vascularization, as delineated by increases in anti-gamma isotype of protein kinase C and CD31 immunoreactivity, compared with the BM-MSC transplanted group. Hence, our results indicate that AD-MSCs are an attractive alternative to BM-MSCs for the treatment of severe spinal cord injury. However, it should be noted that the motor function was equally improved following moderate spinal cord injury in both groups, but with no significant improvement seen unfortunately following severe spinal cord injury in either grou

Functional outcomes after the treatment of hip fracture.

Osteoporotic hip fracture is a major public health issue. Estimation of the outcome and maximization of functional recovery after fracture is very important in the treatment of older patients. The purposes of this study were to clarify the functional outcomes after the treatment of hip fracture and to identify the factors that influence functional recovery. In the present study, 228 patients admitted to an acute-care hospital from January 2016 to June 2018 were evaluated. The patients were categorized into a trochanteric fracture group (n = 128) and a neck fracture group (n = 100). We retrospectively reviewed their ambulation ability 6 months after fracture using the Functional Ambulation Category (FAC) score. The other survey items were the presurgical duration, length of hospital stay, time until beginning to walk using parallel bars, complications affecting treatment, and mortality rate. The 6-month follow-up rate was 54.4% (n = 124). The results showed that the patients with trochanteric fracture were significantly older than those with neck fracture (86 vs. 82 years, respectively; p = 0.03). In total, 85.0% of patients with trochanteric fracture and 92.2% of patients with neck fracture were independent ambulators before injury (FAC score of 4 or 5). The FAC score 6 months after fracture was positively correlated with the FAC score before fracture and at discharge (all p<0.001) and negatively correlated with patient age (p<0.001) and presurgical duration for patients with neck fracture (p = 0.04). There was no statistically significant correlation with the length of hospital stay or the time until beginning to walk using parallel bars. In conclusion, patients with trochanteric fractures were older than those with neck fractures. In both fracture types, walking recovery 6 months after hip fracture was related to the FAC score before injury and at discharge from an acute-care hospital but not to the time until beginning to walk using parallel bars

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Safety and effectiveness of high-dose methotrexate (over 8 mg/week) in 2838 Japanese patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A postmarketing surveillance report

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Safety and effectiveness of high-dose methotrexate (over 8 mg/week) in 2838 Japanese patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A postmarketing surveillance repor

Four mutations of the spastin gene in Japanese families with spastic paraplegia

Hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) is a group of genetically heterogeneous neurodegenerative disorders characterized by slowly progressive spasticity and weakness of the lower limbs. HSP is caused by failure of development or selective degeneration of the corticospinal tracts, which contain the longest axons in humans. The most common form of HSP is caused by mutations of the spastin gene (SPAST), located on chromosome 2p21-p22, which encodes spastin, one of the ATPases associated with diverse cellular activities (AAA). In this study, we detected four causative mutations of SPAST among 14 unrelated patients with spastic paraplegia. Two missense mutations (1447A-->G, 1207C-->G) and two deletion mutations (1465delT, 1475-1476delAA) were located in the AAA cassette region. Three of these four mutations were novel. Previous reports and our results suggest that the frequency of SPAST mutations is higher among Japanese patients with autosomal dominant HSP, although SPAST mutations are also observed in patients with sporadic spastic paraplegia