Treatment of subacute spinal injury by heparin-containing matrix combined with bFGF

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24659792
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Plastic surgery
• Research Institution: The Tazuke Kofukai
• Principal Investigator: HIRAI Tatsuya 公益財団法人田附興風会, 医学研究所第5研究部, 研究員 (50465952)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): SUZUKI Yoshihisa 公益財団法人田附興風会, 医学研究所第5研究部, 研究主幹 (30243025)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 再生医療 / 脊髄損傷 / 人工材料 / 成長因子

Outline of Final Research Achievements

One of the problems concerning subacute spinal injury is the cavity formation in spine nerve. In the present study, we applied heparin containing novel matrix combined with basic fibroblastic growth factor (bFGF) to prevent the cavity formation. The bFGF possesses the affinity to heparin and is expected to stay on the matrix in vivo for a long time. The bFGF-attached heparin-containing matrix demonstrated the effect of bFGF in vivo for one month under physical condition. This novel matrix with bFGF strongly promoted nerve regeneration in partially dissected rat spinal cord. It was also found that this novel matrix had an affinity to the host spinal cord tissues. Elongation of axonal sprouts into the dissected nerve site was observed 8 weeks after surgery.Taken together, our novel matrix combined with bFGF may provide a new strategy to treat spinal cord injury.

Free Research Field

再生医療