✓ Autologous adrenal medullary tissue was transplanted to the striatum in two patients with severe parkinsonism. The aim was to provide the striatum with a new cellular source of catecholamines. Some rewarding effects were registered. This is the first time that such tissue has been transplanted in the human brain. The results merit further clinical trials.

Transplantation of adrenal medullary tissue to striatum in parkinsonism. First clinical trials.

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on an in oculo technique with emphasis on technical details and step-by-step procedures and presents an analysis of various types of grafts. The two most obvious advantages of the in oculo approach are that it provides a chamber in which grafts can exist without being squeezed by or exerting pressure on host tissues and the transparency of the cornea through which grafts can be noninvasively observed. The grafted tissue that acts as a receptor of nerves from the host iris may itself be nervous tissue. The chapter presents a demonstration of partial phenotypic transformation of adult chromaffin cells to neuron-like cells as fiber outgrowth from chromaffin cells grafted to sympathetically denervated irises. Intraocular grafting, when properly performed, is probably among the least harmful types of experimental surgery that can be performed on a rat.

Intraocular Transplantation in Rodents: A Detailed Account of the Procedure and Examples of its Use in Neurobiology with Special Reference to Brain Tissue Grafting

Previous work in this laboratory has shown that adrenal medullary transplants into the spinal cord subarachnoid space can reduce pain sensitivity. This analgesia most likely results from the release of neuroactive substances, particularly catecholamines and opioid peptides, from the transplanted cells into the CSF of the spinal cord, since it can be attenuated or blocked by alpha-adrenergic or opiate antagonists. The purpose of the present study was to more directly measure the release of catecholamines from adrenal medullary transplants in the spinal cord CSF using a spinal superfusion technique. CSF samples from rats with 6-month-old transplants were assayed for catecholamines using HPLC with electro-chemical detection. Results indicated that norepinephrine levels were increased threefold, and epinephrine levels nearly 100-fold, in animals with adrenal medullary transplants compared with control transplanted animals. There was no apparent increase in dopamine levels. Furthermore, the increased levels of total catecholamines were correlated with decreased pain sensitivity. Results of this study indicate that adrenal medullary transplants can survive for long periods in the rat spinal CSF and continue to release high levels of catecholamines. Together, the release of catecholamines and opioid peptides from adrenal medullary transplants may provide the ideal combination for the reduction of pain.

Adrenal medullary transplants increase spinal cord cerebrospinal fluid catecholamine levels and reduce pain sensitivity.

Adrenal medullary implants in the dopamine-denervated rat striatum. I. Acute catecholamine levels in grafts and host caudate as determined by HPLC-electrochemistry and fluorescence histochemical image analysis

Chromaffin cells are neuroendocrine cells, which are highly specialized for the synthesis and release of multiple hormones. Like sympathetic neurons, which are essential, inter alia, for neural control of vascular tone, they are derivatives of the neural crest, a transient structure at the dorsal surface of the embryonic neural tube. Chromaffin cells and sympathetic neurons have many features in common, but are also distinct in several respects. This review provides a summary of similarities and differences regarding the development of chromaffin cells and sympathetic neurons, viewed from molecular and morphological perspectives. Two major, still not finally settled issues, are whether (1) the two related cell types arise from one common or two separate cell lineages of delaminating neural crest cells, (2) in the former case when does lineage segregation occur, and what are the molecules underlying their phenotypic diversification.

The development of the chromaffin cell lineage from the neural crest

Autografts of adrenal chromaffin cells from adult guinea pigs to the anterior chamber of the eye were studied electron microscopically and both histo-and biochemically 4, 8 and 12 weeks after transplantation.

B. Tschechne

Papers

Differentiation and transdifferentiation of adrenal chromaffin cells of the guinea pig