[Olfactory glial cells: hope in the treatment of spinal cord injuries]

Spinal cord injuries (SCI) have been reckoned for many years a serious clinical problem. Current strategies of SCI treatment prevent the occurrence of secondary injury in the spine (neuroprotection methods) as well as induce the anatomical and functional reorganization of intact nerve tracts in the spinal cord due to the plasticity of the central nervous system (neurorehabilitation methods). The observed functional recovery in patients treated for SCI depends on the severity of the injury and not always is satisfying. The elucidation in the last two decades of the mechanisms responsible for the induction of regeneration in the central nervous system enabled new strategies for SCI treatment to be developed. These strategies give an opportunity to obtain clinically-essential recovery of motor, sensor and vegetative functions, even in cases of total lesion of the spinal cord. The milestone in these studies was the usage of intraspinal transplants containing cells with neurotrophic properties, tested on the experimental model of rat SCI. Among the transplanted cells special attention should be paid to the olfactory ensheathing cells (OEC) on account of their unique property to stimulate the central neuroregeneration. In this paper the authors present basic characteristics of rat OEC, discuss their neurotrophic properties after transplantation into the injured animal spinal cord, as well as refer to the first attempts to use human olfactory glial cells in the treatment of SCI in humans.