Role of Human Umbilical Cord Blood derived Stem Cells versus their Conditioned Medium on the Regeneration of Pancreatic Beta Cells in a Rat Model of Diabetes Mellitus

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Histology department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain shams university

2 Histology and cell biology. Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University

3 Histology Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University

4 Histology department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo

Abstract

Introduction: An efficient alternate source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) was obtained from umbilical cord blood (UCB). Therefore, this work was designed to assess the role of human UCB-derived MSCs versus their conditioned medium (CM) on the regeneration of beta cells of the pancreas in a rat model of diabetes.
Materials and Methods: Forty adult male Wistar rats were divided equally into 4 groups; Group I (control), Group II (diabetic), each rat was injected with a single dose of 35 mg/kg of streptozotocin (STZ) intraperitoneally. After being diabetics, they were left without treatment, Group III (UCB-MSCs treated), injected with 1x106 cells /ml of UCB-MSCs once into tail vein after confirmation of being diabetic, Group IV (CM treated), injected intramuscularly with 0.5 ml of CM once per week after being diabetic. After 2 weeks and 4 weeks from being diabetic, the pancreas specimens from all groups were processed for H&E stain and immunohistochemically for anti-insulin and anti-caspase-3 antibodies.
Results: Diabetic group showed distortion of the architecture of islets of Langerhans and resulted in decrease size of islets and appearance of many empty spaces within them. There was significant reduction in body weight, serum insulin, serum C-peptide level and, insulin immunohistochemical stained positive cells. Moreover, significant rise in blood glucose and in caspase-3 immunohistochemical stained positive cells was found. UCB-MSCs and CM treated subgroups showed an obvious histological and biochemical improvement when compared to diabetic group.
Conclusion: Transplantation of UCB-MSCs was more efficient in the regeneration of pancreatic beta cells than injection of conditioned medium in the rat model of diabetes. However, CM still could prevent progress of degeneration of beta cells of islets of Langerhans as indicated by its anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic effect.

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