Identification of Natural Compounds that Regulate Glial Cell Proliferation and Migration for Spinal Cord Injury Transplantation Purposes

Abstract

Transplantation of glial cells, particularly olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) and Schwann cells (SCs) is one of the most promising strategies for the treatment of spinal cord injury and for other neural repair therapies. Effective proliferation and migration of glial cells are essential to optimize clinical applications; therefore identification of molecules that can promote and regulate these biological features is of great interest. The use of neurotrophic factors has long been considered as a potential approach, but, because of their high molecular weight; most are unstable. An important number of natural products have been reported in the literature to be able to mimic the effect of these neurogenic factors, mostly Curcuminoides (derived from the root turmeric) and Linckosides (isolated from the starfish Linckia laevigata). These products have been demonstrated to be neuroprotective and neurogenic on nerve cells, however it is not comprehensively known if these neurogenic natural compounds can influence the biological activity of glial cells. This thesis presents the evaluation of the effects of four known natural neurogenic compounds on the behaviour of OECs and SCs using proliferation assays and time-lapse microscopy analysis methods.