Therapeutic potential of paracrine factors and secretome-based treatment in spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injuries trigger multiple endogenous pathways in an effort to contain damage to the spinal cord. These secondary mechanisms are also associated with damage progression and worse neurological outcome. This Janus-faced characteristic of the secondary response to spinal cord injuries complicates potential modulation of associated pathways. During recent years, our group investigated characteristics of the secretome obtained from apoptotic PBMCs. We demonstrated this secretomes capacity to interact with and modulate multiple cellular and molecular pathways exerting therapeutic potential in diseases like myocardial infarction or stroke. In a previously published study, we were able to show that characteristics of this secretome are also beneficial in a preclinical study of spinal cord injury by modulating the secondary cascade on multiple levels.