Introduction: Numerous experimental studies have suggested that bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs) ameliorate diabetes in animal models. But a number of critical obstacles lie ahead of this new strategy including reducing stem cell homing to the damaged tissue. The present study to investigate whether preconditioning of BMMSCs with stromal derived factor 1α (SDF-1α) could enhance their homing to the pancreas and promote regeneration of the pancreatic β cells after being intravenously injected.
Methods: The BMMSCs were isolated by flushing method and identification of the cells was done by flow cytometry for CD73+, CD90+, CD34- and CD45- markers. On 10 days after STZ induction of diabetes, BMMSCs or BMMSCs+SDF1α at a dose of 1×106 cells/1 ml PBS were transplanted via the tail vein. The same volume of PBS (1 ml) was injected as a vehicle. 48 hours after transplantation, homing of BMMSCs were analysis by flow cytometry and fluorescent microscope. At 30 days after the cell transplantation, blood and pancreatic tissue samples were taken from all mice for biochemical and histological studies.
Results: BMMSCs+SDF-1α had a high ability of homing into the injured pancreas (P ≤ 0.05 vs. BMMSCs). The BMMSCs+SDF-1α group showed further differentiation into insulin secreting βcells (P ≤ 0.05 vs. BMMSCs). Transplantation of BMMSCs+SDF-1α significantly reduced blood glucose level (P ≤ 0.05 vs. BMMSCs).
Conclusion: Our results showed the effectiveness of SDF-1 preconditioning in BMMSCs transplantation of STZ-induced diabetes mice, might be achieved through improvement of BMMSCs homing into the injured pancreas.