Abstract
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive interstitial lung disease with poor prognosis. Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSC) have demonstrated regenerative properties in several tissues. The hypothesis of this study was that airway transplantation of ADSC could protect against bleomycin (BLM)-induced pulmonary fibrosis (PF). Fifty-eight lungs from 29 male Sprague-Dawley rats were analyzed. Animals were randomly divided into five groups: a) control (n=3); b) sham (n=6); c) BLM (n=6); d) BLM+ADSC-2d (n=6); and e) BLM+ADSC-14d (n=8). Animals received 500 µL saline (sham), 2.5 UI/kg BLM in 500 µL saline (BLM), and 2×106 ADSC in 100 µL saline intratracheally at 2 (BLM+ADSC-2d) and 14 days (BLM+ADSC-14d) after BLM. Animals were sacrificed at 28 days. Blinded Ashcroft score was used to determine pulmonary fibrosis extent on histology. Hsp27, Vegf, Nfkβ, IL-1, IL-6, Col4, and Tgfβ1 mRNA gene expression were determined using real-time quantitative-PCR. Ashcroft index was: control=0; sham=0.37±0.07; BLM=6.55±0.34 vs sham (P=0.006). BLM vs BLM+ADSC-2d=4.63±0.38 (P=0.005) and BLM+ADSC-14d=3.77±0.46 (P=0.005). BLM vs sham significantly increased Hsp27 (P=0.018), Nfkβ (P=0.009), Col4 (P=0.004), Tgfβ1 (P=0.006) and decreased IL-1 (P=0.006). BLM+ADSC-2d vs BLM significantly decreased Hsp27 (P=0.009) and increased Vegf (P=0.006), Nfkβ (P=0.009). BLM+ADSC-14d vs BLM significantly decreased Hsp27 (P=0.028), IL-6 (P=0.013), Col4 (P=0.002), and increased Nfkβ (P=0.040) and Tgfβ1 (P=0.002). Airway transplantation of ADSC significantly decreased the fibrosis rate in both early and established pulmonary fibrosis, modulating the expression of Hsp27, Vegfa, Nfkβ, IL-6, Col4, and Tgfβ1. From a translational perspective, this technique could become a new adjuvant treatment for patients with IPF.
Footnotes
Contributors NS-R, PL, DLF, and BC conceived, designed, and oversaw all of the studies, collection of results, interpretation of the data, and writing of the manuscript and were responsible for the primary undertaking, completion, and supervision of all experiments. PL, DLF, and NS-R conducted animal surgeries, stem cell procedures, sample collections, and gene analysis. JLAM and DLF conducted histological studies. MDF-P, MGA, JC, and LMLR assisted in methodological design and statistical analysis. MGA, LMLR, JC, FB, and WR reviewed and critically edited the manuscript.
Funding Beca SEPAR EPID Futuro 2013
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.