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  Discussion on Research Study: Allogeneic Tendon Grafts
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Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 12, 2008 - 7:35 am:

Treatment of acute moderate to severe flexor tendonitis has shown improvement recently with the use of a type of cell called a mesenchymal progenitor cell (MPC). Using purified extracts from a horse's own bone marrow and then growing the stem cells in cell culture then reimplanting this back into the damaged tendon. This is called an "autologous" transplant because the horse's own cells are used.

A problem with this procedure is the collection and culture may fail for various reasons. This has led to duplicate procedures, time lost, inconsistent product, and increase costs. Optimal times for reimplantation are sometimes missed.

The use of a different individuals cells of the same specie is called an allogeneic graft. Imagine that any horse's MPC's could be used as a allogeneic tendon graft? In this case banks of MPC's could be commercially maintained and simply ordered whenever necessary. This should greatly reduce costs and time. This study suggests this is possible. For more on MSC and the treatment of flexor tendonitis see the article associated with this discussion by clicking on "Flexor Tenonitis" on the navigation bar above.
DrO

Equine Vet J. 2008 Jan 10;
Monitoring the fate of autologous and allogeneic mesenchymal progenitor cells injected into the superficial digital flexor tendon of horses: preliminary study.

Guest DJ, Smith MR, Allen WR.

University of Cambridge, Department of Veterinary Medicine Equine Fertility Unit, Mertoun Paddocks, Woodditton Road, Newmarket, Suffolk CB8 9BH, UK.

Autologous mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs) purified from bone marrow aspirates are being used in the treatment of superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT) injuries in the horse with promising results. In this study the fate of autologous and allogeneic MPCs following injection into the SDFT was monitored by stable transfection of MPCs with green fluorescent protein (GFP). Small lesions were created manually in one forelimb SDFT of 2 horses and injected with autologous MPCs, allogeneic MPCs or bone marrow supernatant alone. Post mortem examinations performed after 10 or 34 days revealed GFP labelled cells located mainly within injected lesions, but with a small proportion integrated into the crimp pattern of adjacent healthy areas of tendon. Furthermore, there was no visible cell mediated immune response to allogeneic MPCs in either of the host horses.
Member:
stevens

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 12, 2008 - 9:41 am:

Interesting. When my horse had surgery last fall, part of the procedure was extracting bone marrow from his sternum and injecting it into the damaged tendon. There wasn't any culture of the stem cells, although I believe that is the procedure when fat is harvested from the horse in a similar procedure.

I think Alamo Pintado has published at least one study on their bone marrow injection procedure.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 12, 2008 - 9:47 am:

Chris, in a recent update to the article, we discuss the harvesting and cell culture technique in the article on flexor tendonitis. It is thought this delivers far more active stem cells to the site of injury.
DrO
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