**4. Preclinical researches using mesenchymal stem cells for paraplegia treatment**

Transplantation of MSCs has been well established by several researchers. MSCs have significant effects on the several cellular and molecular cascades. Therefore,



#### *Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapies for Paraplegia: Preclinical and Clinical Studies DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93249*


#### **Table 1.**

*Summary of preclinical surveys using MSCs for treatment of paraplegia.*

they can be regarded as a possible candidate for treating of CNS diseases [56]. MSCs have anti-inflammatory representation [57], immunomodulatory regulation [58, 59], and neuroprotective [60] effects. Moreover, previous findings showed that these cells could secrete trophic factors; thus they could motivate axon regeneration finally leading to functional recovery improvement [61, 62].

Regarding to the paracrine effect, MSCs can produce trophic and neurotropic factors such as insulin-like growth factor (IGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) [63], vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) [64], granulocytemacrophage colony-stimulating factor (GMCSF), fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) [65], and transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) [66]. In addition, gene therapy is another field that MSC therapy can be combined with, for example, introducing special genes into MSCs to generate molecules that have great curative ability and can increase neural survival and regeneration [67, 68]. **Table 1** presents a summary of preclinical studies by applying MSCs for paraplegia.
