Modification of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene: a portal to transform mesenchymal stem cells into advantageous engineering cells for neuroregeneration and neuroprotection.

Multipotential mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are ideal seed cells for recruiting the loss of neural cells due to their strong proliferative capacity, easy acquisition, and considerable tolerance of genetic modifications. After transduction of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene via recombinant retroviral vectors into the human MSCs, nearly 100% of cells expressed BDNF (which were therefore transformed into BNDF-MSCs) as detected by immunocytochemistry, and the quantity of BDNF in the culture medium was increased by approximately 20,000-fold. In spite of the genomic integration of an exogenous gene, BDNF-MSCs did not present any structural aberration in the chromosomes.

[Effect of vascular endothelial growth factor in fracture healing].

Objective: To observe the effect of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in fracture healing and to investigate the influence of VEGF and VEGF antibody in fracture healing.

Methods: One hundred and five rabbits were used to make fracture model in the left radius and randomly divided into control group, VEGF group and VEGF antibody group. VEGF and VEGF antibody were used in the VEGF group and VEGF antibody group respectively, then the blood flow of the fracture ends was measured by single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) 8, 24, 72 hours, 1, 3, 5 and 8 weeks after fracture, the X-ray films of the fracture sites were taken after 1, 3, 5 and 8 weeks to observe the fracture healing.