Human umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cell transplantation improves the liver function of liver cirrhosis rats

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

The feasibility and the mechanism of human umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cel transplantation for the treatment of liver cirrhosis need to be discussed in-depth.

To observe the effect of human umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cel transplantation through portal vein on the liver function and tissue pathological changes of the rats with liver cirrhosis.

Carbon tetrachloride was used to prepare rat model of liver cirrhosis. After the success of modeling, the rats in the cel transplantation group received portal vein injection of 1 mL 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine -labeled human umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cells (5×106), the model group was injected with the same volume of PBS; the normal rats received 1 mL human umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cel transplantation via the portal vein were as the control group. At 4 weeks after transplantation, the rat tail vein blood and liver tissue were obtained for testing. RESULTS AND

At 4 weeks after cel transplantation, compared with the model group, levels of serum alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and total bilirubin in the cel transplantation group were significantly decreased, while the albumin level was increased significantly (P < 0.01); the liver cel inflammatory necrosis, steatosis and liver fibrosis were improved significantly (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01). Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining showed that human umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cel colonization could be seen in the rat liver tissues of the cel transplantation group and control group, but the number of 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine-positive cells in cel transplantation group was significantly larger than that in the control group. Reverse transcription-PCR test result showed that the expressions of cytokeratin 18 and albumin mRNA could be observed in the rat liver tissue of the cel transplantation group, but no expression could be seen in the control group. It is visible that human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells can improve liver function and pathological damage of liver cirrhosis rats in a certain extent, which may relate with the intrahepatic homing colonization and hepatocyte-like cel differentiation of the transplanted cells in the liver cirrhosis rats.