Abstract
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive, fatal neurodegenerative disease. Each year, about 5,000 people in the US are diagnosed with ALS. Treatment options for ALS patients are very limited with only one FDA approved drug that extends survival by a few months. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have created a lot of interest as a possible treatment option for many difficult to treat diseases. The purpose of this project is to characterize genetically altered MSCs that overproduce IGF-1 (MSC-IGF-1), as well as, GFP (MSC-GFP) as a control as a possible, future treatment for ALS. During this research, it was found that MSC-IGF-1 produced IGF-1 at 18µg/mL of supernatant, while MSC-GFP produced no detectable IGF-1. MSC-IGF-1 proliferated at a slower rate than MSC-GFP during a proliferation assay. MSC-IGF-1 was found to have decreased osteogenic differentiation potential as compared to MSC-GFP. MSC-IGF-1 migrated and proliferated slower than MSC-GFP during a motility assay. In conclusion, there is still a large amount of future experimentation to be completed before this treatment plan can become an option for ALS patients, but there is a lot of potential in this research bringing hope for an effective treatment for patients that fight a tragic and fatal disease with very limited options.