Willis Lauren M, Small Brent J, Bickford Paula C, Umphlet Claudia D, Moore Alfred B, Granholm Ann-Charlotte E
Department of Neurosciences, Center on Aging, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina 29425, USA.
J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 2008 Jun;28(6):1150-64. doi: 10.1038/jcbfm.2008.3. Epub 2008 Feb 20.
Transplantation of neural tissue has been attempted as a treatment method for neurodegenerative disorders. Grafted neurons survive to a lesser extent into middle-aged or aged hosts, and survival rates of <10% of grafted neurons is common. Antioxidant diets, such as blueberry, can exert powerful effects on developing neurons and blood vessels in vitro, but studies are lacking that examine the effects of these diets on transplanted tissues. In this study, we examined the effects of a blueberry diet on survival, growth, and vascularization of fetal hippocampal tissue to the anterior chamber of the eye of young or middle-aged female rats. Previous work from our group showed significant increase in neuronal survival and development with blueberry diet in grafts. However, the effects of antioxidant diet on vascular development in grafts have not been explored previously. The age of the host affected individual vessel morphology in that aged hosts contained grafts with thick, undeveloped walls, and wider lumen. The blood-brain barrier also appeared to be affected by the age of the host. The blueberry diet did not affect vessel morphology or density of vessel-associated protein markers but gave rise to significantly increased growth capacity, cytoarchitecture, and the final size of hippocampal grafts.
神经组织移植已被尝试作为治疗神经退行性疾病的一种方法。移植的神经元在中年或老年宿主中的存活程度较低，移植神经元存活率低于10%很常见。抗氧化饮食，如蓝莓，在体外对发育中的神经元和血管可产生强大作用，但缺乏研究来检验这些饮食对移植组织的影响。在本研究中，我们研究了蓝莓饮食对年轻或中年雌性大鼠胎儿海马组织移植到眼前房后的存活、生长和血管化的影响。我们小组之前的工作表明，蓝莓饮食可使移植组织中的神经元存活和发育显著增加。然而，抗氧化饮食对移植组织血管发育的影响此前尚未被探索。宿主的年龄影响单个血管形态，老年宿主的移植组织血管壁厚、发育不良且管腔更宽。血脑屏障似乎也受宿主年龄的影响。蓝莓饮食不影响血管形态或血管相关蛋白标志物的密度，但可使海马移植组织的生长能力、细胞结构和最终大小显著增加。
