Fig. 6.

Early immune cell recruitment is slightly increased in the blood and spinal cord of MSC-grafted mice. We collected spinal cords and plasma of mice, 24 h (white bars) and seven days (dark bars) post-injury (a). We observed that the concentration of G-CSF in the plasma of MSC-grafted mice was slightly increased after 4 h compared to other groups (b), and the concentration of sICAM-1 as well (c), while both markers returned to low levels after seven days. Additionally, the expression of Gr-1 (reflecting the presence of granulocytes) was slightly increased in MSC-grafted spinal cords at 24 h, and returned to low levels after seven days (d) while the expression of CD11b increased at this delay (e). Interestingly, the concentrations of CCL5 and CXCL1 were also slightly boosted after 24 h in MSC-grafted spinal cords (f, h), while CCL2 tended to increase in both MSC- and NCSC-grafted groups (g). MSC mesenchymal stem cell, G-CSF granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, sICAM1 soluble intercellular adhesion molecule, CCL C-C motif ligand, CXCL C-X-C motif ligand, NCSC neural crest stem cell