Engraftment of freshly isolated or cultured human umbilical cord blood cells and the effect of cyclosporin A on the outcome.

Human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) is a potentially valuable resource for cell therapy. The present study investigated the short-term survival of intrastriatal grafts of either freshly isolated or cultured HUCB cells and the effect of the immunosuppressive agent cyclosporin A (CSA) in host rat brains. The group injected with either freshly isolated or cultured HUCB cells was subdivided into CSA or saline controls.