Fig. 2

Treatment with hOM-MSCs reduces inflammation and axonal pathology in the spinal cord during severe EAE. Staining of endpoint lumbar spinal cord revealed that PBS- and hBM-MSCs treated animals had severe inflammation compared to the hOM-MSC treated group as shown by a H&E staining of inflammatory infiltrate (PBS, n = 9; hOM-MSCs, n = 10; hBM-MSCs, n = 10). b CD45 staining of infiltrating lymphocytes (shown in green) and Laminin (shown in red) (PBS, n = 6; hOM-MSCs, n = 4; hBM-MSCs, n = 4) or c. DAPI staining (shown in blue) (PBS, n = 6; hOM-MSCs, n = 8; hBM-MSCs, n = 6). Quantitative analysis showed that hOM-MSC injected animals had significantly fewer inflammatory cell regions as assessed by H&E (d) or CD45 (e) or DAPI (f) compared to PBS control animals. c Lumbar spinal cord tissue was stained for myelin (MBP, shown in green), axons (SMI-31, shown in red) and cellular infiltrate (DAPI, shown in blue) (PBS, n = 6; hOM-MSCs, n = 8; hBM-MSCs, n = 6). g Measurements of abnormal axonal pathology were significantly less in animals injected with hOM-MSCs compared to PBS animals. Animals transplanted with hBM-MSCs showed similar levels of axonal pathology as PBS control animals. h There were no significant differences in myelin pathology across the groups. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ANOVA, Tukey’s multiple comparison. i Spinal cord sections stained with SMI/MBP/DAPI were assigned a score according to the level of cellular infiltration and disruption. Animals injected with hOM-MSCs had significantly lower disease disruption scores compared to PBS control animals. Kruskall-Wallis with Dunn’s multiple comparison. Scale bars represent 100 μm (a, b) and 50 μm (c)