Fig. 1
Treatment with exosomes (TE) significantly rescued the TBI-associated motor deficits relative to TBI-Veh (T) and controls (C). Graphs show motor assessment using EBST (a), forelimb akinesia (b), and paw grasp test (c). Two-way ANOVA showed significant effects as follows: EBST, treatment effects F(4) = 27.04; forelimb akinesia treatment effect F(4) = 30.3; paw grasp treatment effect F(4) = 42.2. Post hoc Bonferroni multiple comparisons are reported for differences versus TBI vehicle (T). #p < 0.01, ##p < 0.001. Treatment with exosomes depleted of MALAT1 (TEdM) did not improve motor performance on EBST and only improved forelimb akinesia and paw grasp at day 3. Treatment with conditioned media depleted of exosomes (TdCM) also showed no improvement on EBST and only improved scores at day 3 on the other two tasks. Groups: sham N = 11; TBI vehicle N = 16; TBI exosomes N = 16; TBI exosomes depleted of MALAT1 N = 16; TBI-conditioned media depleted of exosomes N = 7. Lesion assessment: treatment with exosomes derived from hASCs significantly reduces impact and peri-impact areas of rats after mild TBI. Nissl staining as shown in f was performed on day 11 to assess damage to cortical region post TBI. Graphs d and e quantify the data from images. f The methods for quantifying the impact area and for choosing images for analysis of the peri-impact area. Data for impact area (d) showed significant reduction in cortical lesion area following treatment with exosomes in the TE group and no rescue by any other treatment. Representative images of sections used for quantifying impact area and peri-impact are shown (g). For the peri-impact area (e), there was a significant rescue in the TE group, whereas TEdM group displayed partial rescue of the peri-impact areas when compared with vehicle (T) and sham controls (C). Data in the bar graphs represent the mean ± SEM values. Impact area F = 14.78; peri-impact area F = 56.58. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA followed by Dunnet’s multiple comparison test. #p < 0.1, ##p < 0.01