In-vitro differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into spinal cord neural stem cells (NSCs) can help researchers better understand the cellular processes associated with spinal cord development and regeneration, and provide therapeutic strategies for spinal cord disorders. However, effective and consistent methods for the generation of human spinal cord NSCs are rare. We induced H9 cells into spinal cord NSCs (SCNSCs) that expressed PAX6, NESTIN, SOX1 and HOXC9. The Homer known motif enrichment results of the CUT&Tag assay confirmed the expression of HOXC9 in the H9-derived spinal cord NSCs, which can be maintained for more than 40 days under an in vitro culture system. We next investigated the effects of transplanted human SCNSCs on the repair of the spinal cord injury (SCI) model rats for 60 days. The transplanted human SCNSCs improved BBB scores, reduced the lesion area and promoted an increase in the number of Nestin-positive cells in the spinal cords. Meanwhile, human SCNSC transplantation promoted the expression of synaptophysin, a synaptic signature protein, and MBP, a protein associated with remyelination. In addition, conditioned medium derived from the human SCNSCs also promoted regenerative repair of the injured spinal cord. These results demonstrate that human SCNSCs may play a critical role in the regenerative repair of SCI.

Chao Liu (1974.1), Professor. He graduated from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) with a Ph.D. degree, and did postdoctoral research at Stanford University School of Medicine, Gladstone Institute of the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Maryland, USA. He is a member of the Medical Biotechnology Committee of the Chinese Society of Bioengineering, and a member of the Medical Developmental Biology Branch of the Chinese Society of Anatomy. Director of Morphology Centre Laboratory, College of Basic Medical Sciences, Anhui Medical University. He is in charge of the surface project of the National Natural Fund and the key research projects of the Provincial Education Department and Science and Technology Department. He has been invited as a guest editor of Frontiers in Neuroscience, and as a reviewer of SCI journals such as Neural Regeneration Research and RSC Advances. He has been granted one national invention patent. His research focuses on stem cell/tissue engineering regenerative medicine. His research papers have been published in Genes&Diseases, and JBC.