Study on endothelial progenitor cells in focal cerebral ischemia/reperfusion model in rats

Objective To studied roles of circulating CD34+ monocytes and AC133+ cells in rats after focal cerebral ischemia/reperfusion.Methods Right middle cerebral artery suture occlusion model was used.60 adult SD male rats were randomly divided into 3 groups.They were control,sham-control and animal models which included 1、3、6、12、24h,2、3、4、7、14d reperfusion groups.After right middle cerebral artery occluded,the rats were suffered from ischemia for 2 hours,and then reperfusion was allowed for different time as mentioned above before decapitation.Circulating CD34+ cells were detected by cytoflowmetric analysis and cerebral AC133 antigen expression in 2、3、4、7d reperfusion groups were tested by immunohistochemistry.Results ①Circulating CD34+ cells sharphy decreased from 3 to 7 days and returned to basal values on the 14th day.②AC133 antigen expression was only observed in endothelial cells in areas around infarct core in 4 days.Conclusion The numbers of circulating CD34+ progenitor cells and the expression of AC133 antigen was changed according to different time point after focal cerebral ischemia/reperfusion in rat.It may be suggested that endothelial progenitor cells had taken part in cerebral vascular repair in rat MCAO models.