FIGURE 2.

BM-MSCs transplantation attenuated brain water content, reduced hematoma volume, improved neurological outcomes, and promoted astroglial mesenchymal phenotype switching of astrocytes after ICH. (A) Diagram in vivo experiments. (B) Coronal sections of brain tissues after 3 days post-transplantation. (C) The volume of ICH in BM-MSCs and PBS treated Mice after 3 days post-transplantation (n = 7). (D) Brain water content at 3 days post-transplantation (n = 10). (E,F) BM-MSCs improved neurological outcomes both in the rotarod test and mNSS (n = 10). All data are displayed as means ± SD. The difference between groups was analyzed using One-way ANOVA test. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. (G) Immunofluorescence staining for VIM (purple) and GFAP (green) in ICH mouse brain at 7 days post-PBS transplantation. Bar = 100 μm. GFAP was strongly expressed in reactive astrocytes, and VIM was observed around the lesion area 7 days after ICH. Glial scar (white arrows) could be seen around the hematoma. (H) Immunofluorescence staining for VIM (purple) and GFAP (green) in ICH mouse brain at 7 days with BM-MSCs (yellow) transplantation. Bar = 100 μm. After the transplantation of BM-MSCs, VIM maintained high expression, whereas GFAP was kept at a relative low level. (I) Western blotting analysis of Cx43, GFAP, VIM, Nrf2 and HO-1 expression in ICH mouse brain of control, PBS, and BM-MSCs treatment at 1, 3, 7, and 14 days. The results of densitometric analysis of the bands were shown in Supplementary S1.