Diagnostic utility of GDF15 in neurodegenerative diseases: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: GDF15 may be a potential biomarker for neurodegenerative diseases. In this analysis, we aimed to quantitative analysis the levels of GDF15 in patients with neurological diseases and in health control, and then to determine its potential diagnostic utility.

Methods: Two researchers separately conducted a systematic search of the relevant studies up to January 2021 in Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science.

Human umbilical vein-derived dopaminergic-like cell transplantation with nerve growth factor ameliorates motor dysfunction in a rat model of Parkinson's disease.

Mesenchymal stem cells are capable of differentiating into dopaminergic-like cells, but currently no report has been available to describe the induction of human umbilical vein mesenchymal stem cells (HUVMSCs) into dopaminergic-like cells. In this study, we induced HUVMSCs in vitro into neurospheres constituted by neural stem-like cells, and further into cells bearing strong morphological, phenotypic and functional resemblances with dopaminergic-like cells. These HUVMSC-derived dopaminergic-like cells, after grafting into the brain of a rat model of Parkinson's disease (PD), showed a partial therapeutic effect in terms of the behavioral improvement.