Efficacy of Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Neural Progenitor Cell Replacement Therapy in a Vascular Dementia Animal Model

Background: Cell replacement therapy is the only treatment that restores or repairs the function of impaired tissues in neurodegenerative diseases, including vascular dementia (VaD); however, current VaD treatments focus on slowing or mitigating the underlying small vessel disease progression. We aimed to verify the improvement in neurocognition after administering human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) from in a VaD animal model. Methods: After anesthesia, 10–12-week-old male C5BL/6 mice underwent sham or bilateral carotid artery stenosis (BCAS) surgeries. For BCAS, 0.18-mm micro-coils were wound around the bilateral common carotid arteries to induce chronic vascular insufficiency in the global brain. One day after surgery, the mice were administered phosphate buffer solution or NPC from hiPSCs via the tail vein for 15 d, and divided into sham (n = 6), VEH (n = 6), and NPC (n = 7) groups. Three months after the surgery, neurobehavioral tests including the Y-maze test (YMT), passive avoidance test (PAT), and novel object recognition test (NORT) were performed. Finally, mice brains were sectioned for evaluating microglia (Iba-1), astrocyte (GFAP) activation, and myelin (MBP) degeneration through immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results: PAT latency (p = 0.01) and discrimination index in the NORT (p = 0.043) increased considerably in the NPC group than in the VEH group. However, alterations in YMT were not considerably higher in the NPC group than in the VEH group (p = 0.65). IHC tests revealed that the GFAP- and IBA-1-positive cell number was remarkably lower in the NPC group than in the VEH group (p < 0.05). Moreover, MBP density was higher in the NPC group. Conclusion: hiPSC-derived NPCs have therapeutic potential in cerebral hypoperfusion VaD mice; it improves the working memory of VaD animals by diminishing inflammatory reactions and protecting them from demyelination.