Effects of electrical stimulation and schwann-like cells on peripheral nerve injury

Schwann-like cells are cells that are obtained by differentiation of stem cells in vitro, showing limited morphologically and genetically genuine schwann cells. They are produced to be used for therapeutic purposes due to the low proliferation of real schwann cells in vitro and the ethical problems in their recovery. In our study, the effects of low-intensity electric current at a frequency of 20 Hz and schwann-like cells on peripheral nerve damage were examined. For this purpose, 7 experimental groups consisting of 6 wistar-albino rats were used. In the first stage of the study, stem cells obtained from rat adipose tissue were provided with a schwann-like phenotype by applying differentiation protocol. The cell phenotype obtained was confirmed by in vitro morphological examination and RT-PCR analysis. Subsequently, sciatic nerve damage was created in all rats except the sham group, and nerve damage, electrical stimulation, adipose stem cell, adipose stem cell + electrical stimulation, schwann-like cell and schwann-like cell + electrical stimulation were performed sequentially. Possible positive effects of applications on nerve damage over a 6-week period after the initiation of animal experiments were evaluated weekly sciatic function index (SFI) and nerve conduction velocity, compound muscle action potential, wet muscle weight and histologically at the end of the experiment. According to the results, although electrical stimulation alone provided a limited increase in nerve conduction velocity, it was found that it was more successful with the cultivation of adipose stem cells or schwann-like stem cells. Although an increase was achieved with the combined use of adipose stem cell transplantation and electrical stimulation compared to electrical stimulation alone, it was not statistically significant. However, the increase in nerve conduction velocities was found to be statistically significant with the use of schwann-like cells in the same protocol. Especially, the increase in nerve conduction velocity with electrical stimulation is highly significant. In histological examinations, the combination of schwann-like cell cultivation and electrical stimulation provided the thickest myelin sheath and axon radius to the medium. According to these results, it has been shown that the application of cell therapy in nerve healing can increase the healing capacity of electrical stimulation.