الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Human toxocariasis is an important worldwide soil-transmitted zoonotic disease. Neurotoxocariasis is a serious condition that is linked to reduced cognitive function, behavioural alterations and neurodegenerative diseases. Unfortunately, the available drugs for treatment of toxocariasis are with variable results. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been used in animal models and clinical trials of tissue injuries and it gave promising therapeutic results. The aim of the present study was to evaluate mesenchymal stem cell therapy for treatment of brain organ damage caused by experimental infection with Toxocara canis alone or in combination with the traditional drug albendazole. Therefore, this study was designed using forty T. canis-infected albino mice (1000 eggs/mouse, orally) and an additional control group (GI) (-ve control) of ten healthy mice. The infected mice were divided into four groups (n=10). GII (+ve control) was the infected nontreated group (infected control), GIII (SC treated): MSCs-treated (3 x 106 MSCs in 0.1 mL of PBS via the tail vein), GIV (ALB treated) albendazole-treated (100 mg/kg/d once orally for 5 successive days) and GV (SC/ALB): MSCs+ albendazole-treated. Treatment was commenced 4 weeks p.i. and the experiment was terminated four weeks after administration of the last doses of the tested drugs. The brain tissue of each mouse was subjected for histopathological, immunohistochemical studies (caspase-3, TGF-β), detection or T. canis DNA by real-time PCR and gene expression the biomarkers of brain damage (S100B, GFAP) by real- time RT-PCR. Moreover, homing of iron oxide-labelled MSCs in brain tissues was assessed by Prussian blue stain. |