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As peripheral neurons are injured, several inflammatory factors will be released from the fiber of the injured nervous leading to morphological and biochemical changes in the injured point. This changes ultimately results in the Wallerian degeneration of the cell bodies of these neurons in the spinal cord which are involved in retrograde reaction. Levisticum officinale is one of the herbs that has been traditionally used for treatment of many diseases. Many studies have confirmed the anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects of this plant. It is expected that the extract of Levisticum officinale would have a significant role in the restoration of nervous system injuries. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the alcoholic extract of Levisticum officinale on the neuron protection of the sciatic nerves of injured rats. In this study, the ethanolic extract was obtained from Levisticum officinale. Then the rats were randomly divided into 5 groups, each containing 6 rats, including two control and compression groups and three treatment groups treated with 50, 75 and 100 mg/kg doses of the extract. Sciatic nerve in compression and treatment groups was exposed to compression for 60 seconds, and the ethanolic extract was injected intraperitoneally in the first, second and third weeks. The spinal cord of the rats were sampled and the neurons of the samples were counted using a dissector method after tissue passaging and staining. Meanwhile, the density of motoneurons was measured. T-test analysis was performed by using SPSS software. The density of α motoneurons in compression group decreased significantly as compared to the control group (p

Due to pluripotency of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, and the lack of immunological incompatibility and ethical issues, iPS cells have been considered as an invaluable cell source for future cell replacement therapy. This study was aimed first at establishment of novel iPS cells, ECiPS, which directly reprogrammed from human Eye Conjunctiva-derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells (EC-MSCs); second, comparing the inductive effects of Wnt3a/Activin A biomolecules to IDE1 small molecule in derivation of definitive endoderm (DE) from the ECiPS cells. To that end, first, the EC-MSCs were transduced by SOKM-expressing lentiviruses and characterized for endogenous expression of embryonic markers Then the established ECiPS cells were induced to DE formation by Wnt3a/Activin A or IDE1. Quantification of GSC, Sox17 and Foxa2 expression, as DE-specific markers, in both mRNA and protein levels revealed that induction of ECiPS cells by either Wnt3a/Activin A or IDE1 could enhance the expression level of the genes; however the levels of increase were higher in Wnt3a/Activin A induced ECiPS-EBs than IDE1 induced cells. Furthermore, the flow cytometry analyses showed no synergistic effect between Activin A and Wnt3a to derive DE-like cells from ECiPS cells. The comparative findings suggest that although both Wnt3a/Activin A signaling and IDE1 molecule could be used for differentiation of iPS into DE cells, the DE-inducing effect of Wnt3a/Activin A was statistically higher than IDE1.