Histopathological evaluation of therapeutic potentialities of stem cell laden MWCNT based nano-neural scaffold and IGF-I in sciatic nerve crush injury induced disuse atrophy

Carbon Nano-tubes reinforced in PCL scaffold shows very promising effect in functional and structural recovery of muscles following neural tissue regeneration. The study was undertaken with the aim of developing in vivo system using bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cell laden nano-neural scaffold to induce nerve regeneration in sciatic nerve crush injury model. In vitro studies were conducted on thirty apparently healthy and skeletally mature Wistar rats of either sex. The animals were randomly allocated into five groups. Left sciatic nerve of these animals was crushed for ninty seconds at second locking position using artery forceps. Group A was control group while in group B, injured nerve was implanted with only Collagen + PCL + MWCNT scaffold; in group C, Collagen + PCL + MWCNT scaffold along with IGF-I was instilled at the site of injury; in group D, Collagen + PCL + MWCNT along with rBMSC instilled at the site of injury and in group E, Collagen + PCL + MWCNT along with combination of IGF-I and rBMSC instilled at the site of injury. In the present study, we examined the regenerative ability stem cell laden Collagen + PCL + MWCNT scaffold with and without IGF-I after sciatic nerve crush injury using behavioural, morphometric, histological evaluations.