著者

Alan Mackay-Sim

出版者

The Keio Journal of Medicine

雑誌

The Keio Journal of Medicine (ISSN:00229717)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.54, no.1, pp.8-14, 2005 (Released:2005-09-28)

参考文献数

68

被引用文献数

28 46

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The olfactory ensheathing cell is a specialized glial cell that assists in growth of the axons of the olfactory sensory neurons as they are generated and regenerated throughout adult life. There is increasing evidence in animal models that transplantation of olfactory ensheathing cell promotes recovery after transplantation into the injured spinal cord. Olfactory ensheathing cell transplants have promoted regrowth of axons across the injury site and led to recovery of functional behaviours including climbing, walking, reaching, and breathing. Most evidence comes from olfactory ensheathing cells derived from the olfactory bulb. This is an impractical site for human biopsy compared to the easy accessibility of olfactory ensheathing cells from the olfactory mucosa in the nose. Our experiments demonstrated that nasal olfactory ensheathing cells led to functional improvement after complete spinal cord transaction in rat. After devising methods to grow human olfactory ensheathing cells from nasal biopsy we recently initiated a Phase I clinical trial of transplantation into the human paraplegic spinal cord.