Frequent injections of high-dose human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells slightly aggravate arthritis and skeletal muscle cachexia in collagen-induced arthritic mice

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Frequent injections of high-dose human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells slightly aggravate arthritis and skeletal muscle cachexia in collagen-induced arthritic mice Via Experimental and therapeutic medicine Exp Ther Med. 2021 Nov;22(5):1272. doi: 10.3892/etm.2021.10707. Epub 2021 Sep 7. ABSTRACT A single injection of low-dose human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSCs) has been previously demonstrated to relieve synovitis and bone erosion in animal models of arthritis, but whether frequent injections of high-dose UC-MSCs relieve arthritis and inhibit loss of muscle mass has remained elusive. In the present study, DBA/1 mice were randomly divided into three groups: Normal (wild-type mice; n=11), collagen-induced arthritis (CIA; n=12) and CIA treated with UC-MSCs (n=11; 5x106 UC-MSCs per week for 3 weeks). Arthritis and skeletal muscle cachexia were evaluated until the end of the experiment on day 84. It was indicated that both the CIA and UC-MSC groups had lower body weights compared with the normal mice. Clinical arthritis scores, hind ankle diameters, synovitis and bone erosion progressively increased and wer e similar between the CIA and UC-MSC groups. Although there was no difference in food intake among the three groups, the normalized food intake of normal group was significantly higher than CIA group and UC-MSC group from day 42 onwards; there was no significance on day 77 but this could be neglected. Furthermore, gastrocnemius muscle weight in the UC-MSC group was significantly reduced compared with that in the CIA and normal groups. The UC-MSC group had higher levels of proinflammatory cytokines, such as TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-1β than those in the CIA group. However, the other cytokines assessed and the fibrosis indices in the CIA and UC-MSC groups were not different from those in the control group and there was no inflammatory cell infiltration. Thus, frequent injections of high-dose UC-MSCs slightly aggravated synovitis and muscle cachexia in the murine CIA model and should therefore be avoided in the treatment of arthritis. PMID:34594409 | PMC:PMC8456494 | DOI:10.3892/etm.2021.10707 View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.