Abstract
Purpose: The treatment of radiation-induced intestinal injury is difficult and there is no effective treatment now. It is important to develop new treatments for radiation-induced intestinal injury. Previously, we reported that embryonic stem cells (ESCs) transplanted directly into the wall of irradiated intestine could colonize and differentiate. But the transplantation of ESCs showed no influence on the survival rate and the change of body weight of the mice with radiation-induced intestinal injury. In this study, we investigated whether the mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) transplantation could prevent the radiation-induced intestinal injury.
Methods: The intestines of female nude mice (ICR nu/nu) were irradiated at a single dose of 30 Gy (X-ray of 150 kV, 5 mA, with 0.5 mm Al filters, at a dose rate of 1.9 Gy/min), and were immediately transplanted with male MSCs (C57BL/6n) into the wall of the irradiated intestine by direct injection. For 13 days after irradiation, mice were weighed daily, and the survival was recorded. At 13 days to 27 days after irradiation, the intestines of mice were obtained to assay histological change by Haematoxylin-eosin staining.
Results: The body weight of the irradiation and MSCs transplantation group increased significantly compared with the irradiation only group from 8 days after irradiation. In addition, the survival rate of the irradiation and transplantation group was significantly higher than that of the irradiation only group from 5 days after irradiation. In the histological observation, the intestines of MSCs transplanted mice were thick in the submucosa and muscle layer, and were recovered from the radiation-induced intestinal injury.
Conclusions: These results suggest that transplanted MSCs may play important role to prevent radiation-induced injury. It may become a new treatment method to repair the radiation-induced intestinal injury. The protective mechanism of MSCs transplantation will be needed to study.
