الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Liver fibrosis is considered to be a wound healing response characterized by extracellular matrix (ECM) accumulation following liver injury. If the insult is acute or self-limited, these changes are transient, and liver structure is restored to its normal. On the other hand, sustained injury leads to persistent chronic inflammation and ECM accumulation, with progressive scar tissue formation. The end consequence of progressive fibrosis is cirrhosis, which can lead to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), liver failure and death.
At present, the effective treatment for liver fibrosis is liver transplantation. Still, transplantation is limited by the availability of donor organs, surgery complications, immune rejection and increased medical costs. It has been suggested that stem cell therapy would contribute as an effective alternative treatment for hepatic diseases.
MSCs are capable of homing to sites of injury and inflammation. However, the dynamics and molecular mechanisms of MSC trafficking to sites of injury are not fully understood which comprises one of the limiting barriers facing the clinical translation of MSC-based therapies. Hence, new technologies to noninvasively track the behavior of MSCs are currently a persisting field of research priorities that would facilitate the benefit from MSC-based therapy. A range of molecules can be used for labeling the isolated MSCs, such as superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO(, fluorescent dyes, or radionuclides.
The purpose of the present study was to assess the efficacy of SPIO- labeled BM-MSCs in alleviation of experimentally induced carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) liver fibrosis with and without the continuation of the disease induction. These changes were documented histologically, by biochemical analysis of liver function tests and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of gene expressions.
The study was carried out on sixty Sprague Dawley albino rats, ten males 3 weeks old and weighing 25-35 g, for the isolation of MSCs, and fifty females 6-8 weeks old and weighing 150-200 g.
The BM-MSCs were isolated from the male rats and characterized using phase contrast inverted microscope, Colony Forming Unit Fibroblast assay (CFU) and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) for the surface markers. The cultured BM-MSCs were labeled with SPIO and further incubated in 5% CO2 at 37 °C. To examine labeling efficiency, Prussian blue staining of iron particles was performed to the cultured cells.