Chennai researchers say gum tissue key to cure spinal cord injuries

An expert says that the ongoing research with the stem cells could come up with a possible way for restoring cells in the case of a spinal cord injury. Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) comes with a number of severe consequences and as per WHO, it as a major musculoskeletal condition that presents a serious disease burden. 

While the severity of disability after a skull fracture is estimated at 43%, for SCI it is 72% Stem cells aid in the healing of any injured part of the body and also helps in restoring the part to its original form. And, when researchers at the Sri Ramachandra University, were looking for the most potent cells, it was gingiva, also known as the human gum that actually served the purpose. 

Gingiva heals easily and without a scar. The team headed by Dr.R. Suresh, Professor and Head of Periodontology and research scholars S. Rajasekaran and M.G. Dinesh have, for the first time in India, turned the stem cells isolated from gingiva into nerve cells. This research has been published in the international journal “Experimental Molecular Medicine” in February 2016. 

Talking to DTNext, Dr Suresh said currently, the cells are being tried on rats after creating spinal cord injuries in them. “We isolated stem cells from gingiva and placed them in the hydrogel scaffold from Central Leather Research Institute and added some proteins to it, turning them into nerve cells. 

We have placed the stem cells in rats; they are alive and are doing quite well,” he said, adding that required markers were used to assess the stem cells and nerve cells in each stage. The research is expected to pave way for a solution for curing spinal cord injury, which are extremely common during traffic accidents in the country. 

“In such injuries, healing is in the form of repair and it is often just a compromise. We are, sometimes, unable to restore the tissue or the cell in the form it was before the injury, unlike liver which is the regenerative part of the body. Currently, we are studying if restoring an injured part to its original form is possible in the animal model. We want to go deeper and see how many type of nerve cells it can turn into,” he added.