Basic neuroscienceA new and safe method for stereotactically harvesting neural stem/progenitor cells from the adult rat subventricular zone

- We introduced a modified subventricular zone (SVZ) biopsy method in adult rat.
- We examined the efficacy and safety of the biopsy procedure.
- A considerable amount of progeny could be generated from the obtained tissue.
- The procedure did not have an adverse impact on behavioral and neurological tests.
- Our method is safe enough to harvest SVZ cells for autologous transplantation.

BackgroundAdult neural stem/progenitor cells (NS/PCs) are one of the outstanding cell sources for therapeutic purposes in the central nervous system diseases. Autologous transplantation of NS/PCs still is a matter of controversy due to the safety issue as well as efficiency of harvesting these cells from the live mammalian brain subventricular zone (SVZ).New methodIn this new and safe method, a 16-guage semi-automatic biopsy needle was used stereotactically to remove a piece of SVZ. Then, the proliferation and differentiation capacity of obtained cells were assessed. In addition, the safety of the biopsy procedure was analyzed employing the Morris water maze, modified neurologic severity score, passive avoidance and open field tests.ResultsDespite being very small in size, the SVZ specimen could generate a large number of progeny with the ability to differentiate into neuronal and glial cells. The biopsy procedure introduced in this study did not have any impact on the behavioral and neurological processes.Comparison with existing method(s)existing SVZ biopsy methods were uncontrollable techniques which harvested brain tissue by aspiration using a syringe not a semi-automatic biopsy needle. Also, previous methods were not evaluated in terms of behavior and cognition.ConclusionsThis study revealed a considerable safety and efficacy for the stereotactical removal of the adult rat SVZ to harvest NS/PCs for autologous transplantation.