The ongoing search for therapies that promote RGC survival and axonal regeneration has impelled many in vitro and in vivo studies. No clinical treatment is available to sustain RGC survival and promote their regeneration. For instance, glaucoma, the leading cause of RGC degeneration, affects more than 70 million people worldwide, 8 million of whom suffer irreversible bilateral blindness. These injuries specifically affect the RGCs, whose axons form the optic nerve, and their cell bodies degenerate as a consequence of the injury.
Optic nerve injuries resulting from optic neuropathies, traumas, or tumors are characterized by optic nerve degeneration, resulting in partial to complete loss of vision. These findings highlight the possibility to use cell therapy to preserve neurons and to promote axon regeneration, using a reliable source of human MSCs. The observations showed that this treatment with human-derived MSCs promoted sustained neuroprotection and regeneration of RGCs after optic nerve injury. Treatment with hWJ-MSCs also promoted axonal regeneration along the optic nerve and reinnervation of visual targets 120 days after crush. The same effect was obtained using serum-deprived hWJ-MSCs, whereas transplantation of EVs obtained from those cells was ineffective. HWJ-MSCs had a sustained neuroprotective effect on RGCs for 14, 60, and 120 days after optic nerve crush. We investigated the efficacy of human umbilical Wharton’s jelly-derived MSCs (hWJ-MSCs) and their extracellular vesicles (EVs) in a rat model of optic nerve crush. Therapies with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from different sources have been used experimentally to increase survival and regeneration of RGCs. Optic-nerve injury results in impaired transmission of visual signals to central targets and leads to the death of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and irreversible vision loss.
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