Preventing Diabetes Associated Cardiac Dysfunction by MSC

Cairo, Egypt -

Bone marrow stem cell therapy is being clinically used by various institutions for treatment of non-hematopoietic diseases.  For example, it has been previously reported in clinical trials that administration of bone marrow cells prevents pathological cardiac remodeling post-infarct.  Additionally, bone marrow stem cells have demonstrated benefit in patients with liver failure, and in animal models of kidney failure.  It is not known whether the therapeutic effects of the bone marrow cells are mediated by secretion of soluble factors such as IGF-1, or whether the bone marrow is directly differentiating into new tissue to replace the damaged tissue.  In fact, some studies suggest that administered stem cells rely on endogenous stem cells.  Whatever the mechanisms of action are, if one looks at the ClinicalTrials.gov website, one sees numerous on-going clinical trials using bone marrow and bone marrow derived stem cells being assessed clinically for a plethora of different non-hematopoietic indications.

In a recent paper (Abdel Aziz et al. Effect of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells on cardiovascular complications in diabetic rats. Med Sci Monit. 2008 Nov;14(11):BR249-55) the use of bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells for treatment of diabetes-associated heart dysfunction was assessed.  This was an interesting paper because firstly it did not use an acute infarct situation.  Normally after an infarct there is a peak in cardiac generated chemokines that attracts stem cells to the area of injury.  In the current study the cardiac injury was chronic and was causes presumably by the concurrent diabetes that was induced in the rat by treatment with a beta-cell toxin.

The researchers found that after induction of diabetes by administration of streptozotocin, animals that recieved mesenchymal stem cells systemically had higher insulin levels and lower glucose levels.  Additionally these animals had improved cardiac function as compared to animals recieving only streptozotocin.  In order to demonstrate that the stem cells were implicated in the therapeutic effects, the researchers administered to female rats male mesenchymal stem cells.  Y-chromosome positive cells were found in the pancreatic and cardiac tissue of the recipient animals.

This study suggests that mesenchymal stem cells may be useful for complications of diabetes, and may have effects in chronic conditions.

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