Abstract
Autologous bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (BM-MSCs) are evaluated for clinical use in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, but it is unclear whether COPD affects BM-MSCs.
To investigate this, BM-MSCs from nine COPD patients and nine non-COPD age-matched controls were compared with regard to immunophenotype, growth and differentiation potential, and migration capacity. Other functional assays included the response to pro-inflammatory stimuli and inducers of the nuclear factor (erythroid derived 2)-like 2 antioxidant response element (Nrf2-ARE) pathway, and effects on NCI-H292 airway epithelial cells.
No significant differences were observed in terms of morphology, proliferation and migration, except for increased adipocyte differentiation potential in the COPD group. Both groups were comparable regarding mRNA expression of growth factors and inflammatory mediators, and in their potential to induce mRNA expression of epidermal growth factor receptor ligands in NCI-H292 airway epithelial cells. MSCs from COPD patients secreted more interleukin-6 in response to pro-inflammatory stimuli. Activation of the Nrf2-ARE pathway resulted in a comparable induction of mRNA expression of four target genes, but the expression of the NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 gene NQO1 was lower in MSCs from COPD patients.
The observation that MSCs from COPD patients are phenotypically and functionally comparable to those from non-COPD controls implies that autologous MSCs can be considered for use in the setting of clinical trials as a treatment for COPD.
Abstract
Phenotype and functional analysis of BM-MSCs from COPD patients supports their use in autologous MSC treatment http://ow.ly/TRtX3008t6c
Footnotes
This article has supplementary material available from openres.ersjournals.com
Support statement: This study was supported in part by a grant from the Lung Foundation Netherlands (grant number 6.1.14.009). Funding information for this article has been deposited with the Open Funder Registry.
Conflict of interest: Disclosures can be found alongside this article at openres.ersjournals.com
- Received July 16, 2015.
- Accepted May 6, 2016.
- Copyright ©ERS 2016
This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.