Glial implications in transplantation therapy of spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injuries are damages that result in complete or partial loss of sensation and/or mobility and affect the life qualities of many patients. Their pathophysiology includes primary and secondary processes, which are related with the activation of astrocytes and microgliacytes and the degeneration of oligodendrocytes. Although transplantation of embryonic stem cells or neural progenitor cells is an attractive strategy for repair of the injured central nervous system (CNS), transplantation of these cells alone for acute spinal cord injuries has not resulted in robust axon regeneration beyond the injury sites. This may be due to the progenitor cells differentiating to the cell types that support axon growth poorly and/or their inability to modify the inhibitory environment of adult CNS after injury. Recent studies indicate that transplantation of glial progenitor cells has exhibited beneficial effects on the recovery and promising future for the therapy strategy of spinal cord injury. In this review, we summarized the data from recent literature regarding glial implications in transplantation therapy of spinal cord injury.