Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Based Therapies against Podocyte Damage in Diabetic Nephropathy

Injury to podocytes is an early event in diabetic nephropathy leading to proteinuria with possible progression to end-stage renal failure. The podocytes are unique and highly specialized cells that cover the outer layer of kidney ultrafiltration barrier and play an important role in glomerular function. In the past few decades, adult stem cells, such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) with a regenerative and differentiative capacity have been extensively used in cell-based therapies. In addition to their capability for regeneration and differentiation, MSCs contributes to their milieu by paracrine action of a series of growth factors via antiapoptotic, mitogenic and other cytokine actions that actively participate in treatment of podocyte damage through prevention of podocyte effacement, detachment and apoptosis. It is hoped that novel stem cell-based therapies will be developed in the future to prevent podocyte injury, thereby reducing the burden of kidney disease.

In vitro antioxidant activity of the individual herbs of DIA-2, a herbal mixture containing standardized extracts of Allium sativum and Lagerstroemia speciosa.

Hyperglycemia induced oxidative stress is one of the main mechanism involved in the pathogenesis of diabetic complications. Use of antioxidants as an adjuvant therapeutic approach in diabetes could prevent or delay the progression of oxidative stress induced diabetic complications. Many herbal drugs possess multiple pharmacological actions like anti-hyperglycemic, anti-obesity and anti-oxidant properties etc., which could act through multiple pathways and may offer beneficial effect in the management of multi-factorial diseases such as diabetes. Development of herbal formulation with ingredients having multiple actions could be a potential approach for improving therapeutic efficacy. We here report the free radical scavenging activity of a herbal mixture, DIA-2 and its individual herbs. DIA-2, a herbal formulation containing fixed combination of standardized aqueous extracts of Allium sativum (ASE) bulbs and Lagerstroemia speciosa (LSE) leaves. The present study was undertaken to investigate whether a combination of ASE and LSE shows a synergistic antioxidant effect than its individual herbs. In vitro antioxidant activity for individual herbs and DIA-2 was determined by DPPH radical scavenging, nitric oxide scavenging assay, total antioxidant capacity, reducing power assay and ABTS radical scavenging methods respectively. Our results suggest that DIA-2 could synergistically enhance the antioxidant activity and could be attributed due to the synergistic actions of the individual ingredients. The data obtained suggests the combined use of ASE and LSE as active ingredients in the development of antidiabetic herbal formulation, synergizing its therapeutic value in treating hyperglycemia and associated oxidative stress.