Fig. 3: The transplanted hADSCs can participate in reconstitution of the broken circuitry and lead to the behavioral recovery of the SCI mice.

a Immunostaining images demonstrate hADSCs are effectively infected by HSV-TK-mCherry-GCV viruses and become neuronal-like cells and integrate into the injured site of SCI spinal cord, as stained positively by MAP2 and vGLUT. b Administration of GCV can eliminate most of the transplanted cells as demonstrated by co-staining of mCherry with NeuN, MAP2, and GFAP. c Statistic analysis shows both mCherry-positive cells and mCherry-positive neurons are largely deleted by GCV administration within 2 weeks (n = 5); d BMS scoring in total demonstrate that GCV administration leads to gradual worsening of locomotor capacity and functional relapse (n = 12); e Western blotting data show positive expression of HuNA in the SCI-hADSC-MN group, further demonstrating the long-term survival of transplanted cells; f Western blotting quantification data is analyzed by two-way ANOVA; g motor-evoked potential is analyzed among different groups to test the integrity of the neural circuitry along the corticospinal axis, showing that the transplanted hADSCs are essential for the re-establishment of neural circuitry in SCI mice and deletion of transplanted cells by GCV will lead to the disruption of the neural circuitry again (n = 12). Scale bar: 25 μm