Jacobs Journal of Regenerative Medicine
OPEN ACCESS
Review Article
Targeted Homing of Transplanted Human Neural Precursor Cells Tagged with Super Paramagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury Aleem Ahmed Khan*1, Sandeep Kumar Vishwakarma1, Avinash Bardia1, Syed Ameer Basha Paspala1, Taimur Athar2, J. Venkateshwarlu3, Anand Abkari3, G.S.N. Murthy3
Central Laboratory for Stem Cell Research and Translational Medicine, CLRD and Salar-E-Millat Research Centre, Deccan College of
1
Medical Sciences, Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad 500 058, Telangana, India OBC, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, Telangana, 500007, India
2
Department of Radiology, Deccan College of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
3
*Corresponding author: Dr. Aleem Ahmed Khan, Chief Scientist, Central Laboratory for Stem Cell Research and Translational Medicine, CLRD, Deccan College of Medical Sciences, Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad 500 058, Telangana, India, Tel: +91-40-24342954; Fax: +91-40-24342954; Email:
[email protected] Received:
08-12-2015
Accepted: 10-02-2015 Published: 10-23-2015 Copyright: © 2015 Aleem
Abstract Spinal cord injury is a major devastating condition which leads to significant morbidity and mortality. It causes permanent neurological damage due to injury in motor neurons. Despite enormous developments in medical and surgical cares, the existing clinical treatments for SCI are limited. Exploration of probable utility of stem cells in neurological regeneration and repair has been an exciting development in neuroscience. Despite broad therapeutic benefits, numerous fundamental issues related to stem cell transplantation in SCI remains to be addressed. Stem cell tracking allows better understanding of the cell therapeutic approaches which ensures maximum therapeutic benefit with minimal amount of cells at a site while minimizing the harmful effects. Current interest in stem cell transplantation as most promising approach for repairing SCI is being added by magnetic nanoparticles and magnetic resonance imaging. We have developed bi-metal SPIO-nanoparticles by combining Gadolinium with SPIO (Gd-SPIO,