CLINICAL RESEARCH · ALZHEIMER'S · AGING
Distribution Pattern Following Systemic Mesenchymal Stem Cell Injection Depends on the Age of the Recipient and Neuronal Health
MSC Bio-Distribution · Alzheimer's Disease · Aging · Transplantation Efficiency
At Dream Body Clinic we treat Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia, and related neurological conditions with Stem Cell Therapy. For Alzheimer’s and dementia we use 50 million mesenchymal stem cells injected intrathecally (into the spinal fluid). These MSCs travel from the spinal fluid to the cerebral fluid where they can guide cellular repair of damage from Alzheimer’s and dementia. This treatment has shown tremendous results in cognition and verbal response in patients.
Background
MSCs show therapeutic efficacy in many different age-related degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. Very little is currently known about whether aging impacts the transplantation efficiency of MSCs.
Methods: This study investigated the distribution of intravenously transplanted syngeneic MSCs derived from young and aged mice into young, aged, and transgenic APP/PS1 Alzheimer’s disease mice. MSCs from male donors were transplanted into female mice and their distribution pattern monitored by PCR using Y-chromosome-specific probes.
Results
Four weeks after transplantation into young mice, young MSCs were found in the lung, axillary lymph nodes, blood, kidney, bone marrow, spleen, liver, heart, and brain cortex. In contrast, young MSCs transplanted into aged mice were only found in the brain cortex.
In both young and aged mouse recipients, transplantation of aged MSCs showed bio-distribution only in the blood and spleen. Although young transplanted MSCs only showed neuronal distribution in the brain cortex in young mice, they exhibited a wide neuronal distribution pattern in the brains of APP/PS1 mice — found in the cortex, cerebellum, hippocampus, olfactory bulb, and brainstem.
Key Findings & Clinical Implications
Young MSCs for Young Patients
In young mice, transplanted young MSCs distributed throughout multiple organs. In aged mice, MSCs concentrated in the brain cortex — suggesting MSCs target areas of greatest neurological need.
Never Use Aged MSCs
Transplantation of aged MSCs showed distribution only in blood and spleen — not reaching the brain at all. Clinically: aged donor MSCs should not be used for transplantation.
Wide Brain Distribution in Alzheimer's
Young MSCs showed wide neuronal distribution in APP/PS1 Alzheimer’s mice — cortex, cerebellum, hippocampus, olfactory bulb, and brainstem — exactly the areas affected by the disease.
Conclusions
MSC bio-distribution post-transplantation is detrimentally affected by aging and neuronal health. Aging of both the recipient and the donor MSCs attenuates transplantation efficiency. Clinically, this data suggests that aged MSCs should not be used for transplantation and that transplantation of MSCs into aged patients will be less efficacious.
Keywords: Mesenchymal stem cells, Biodistribution, Systemic injection, Aging, Alzheimer’s disease.
