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Progress on Olfactory Ensheathing Cells and their potential use of for clinical studies in peripheral nerve repair
Aktuelle Entwicklungen und Fortschritte in der klinischen Anwendung von Olfactory Ensheathing Cells für die periphere Nervenregeneration
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Published: | September 27, 2016 |
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A number of pilot clinical studies have been carried out using Olfactory Ensheathing Cells (OECs) for transplantation into patients with central nervous injury. These studies have generally indicated safety, but a number of factors are being addressed including cell derivation sources, characterization and purity of the transplanted cells and methods for evaluation of efficacy. To date OEC transplant studies in human patients with peripheral nerve injury have not been carried out. Given the safety using OECs in spinal cord injury patients and the efficacy of OECs in experimental models of peripheral nerve repair, a clinical study using OECs for nerve repair should be considered. As with spinal cord injury harvesting of cells will be a critical component in the design of the clinical studies.
While methods are available to harvest OECs from nasal mucosa by biopsy the cell harvest of OEC from bulbar biopsies of the olfactory bulb is approximately 50%, in contrast to 5% after mucosa biopsy. This again emphasizes the need to study nerve repair in experimental nerve injury models using human mucosal derived OECs. OECs are known to secrete levels of growth factors (e.g. BDNF, NGF, and NT-3) which have a significant effect in enhancing nerve regeneration. Moreover, possible anti-inflammatory and vessel promoting influences could also help in the promotion of nerve repair. Thus, OECs may have a multitude of therapeutic effects that could contribute to improved functional recovery after nerve injury. In summary, the results from a large body of work indicate that OECs can importantly influence neural repair after peripheral nerve injury. Nerve regeneration can be facilitated, regenerated axons can be remyelinated by them and importantly they can lead to improved functional outcome when used in conjunction with traditional nerve repair methods. Aside from the direct use of OECs for clinical transplantation studies, knowledge of the mechanism by which they promote regeneration and neural repair could lead to the development of novel pharmacological approaches to enhance nerve repair.