Therapeutic Potential of Umbilical Cord Blood-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Ischemic Myocardium

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: We designed this study to determine the therapeutic potentials of umbilical cord blood (UCB)-mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), as compared with bone marrow (BM)-MSCs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: MSCs were isolated from UCB and BM. For the in vivo study, myocardial infarction was induced by ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) in rats for 30 min, and this was followed by release; the MSCs were then injected into a designated point around the infarcted area. Echocardiographs were performed two weeks after surgery. For the in vitro study, a cDNA microarray and cytokine array were performed to compare the MSCs from UCB and from BM. Cell migration was assessed by a wound scratch assay, and the level of cardiac ankyrin repeat protein (CARP) was determined by reverse transcriptase-polymer chain reaction (RT-PCR) or Western blot analysis. RESULTS: For the echocardiograph findings, the fractional shortening (FS) was 43.9% in the UCB-MSCs group and it was 38.6% in the BM-MSC group. The ejection fraction (EF) was 79.8% in the UCB-MSC group and it was 72.4% in the BM-MSC group (control FS: 26.2% and the control EF: 56.6%). CARP was one of the highly expressed genes in the UCB-MSCs on the cDNA microarray. The mRNA and the expressed level of CARP protein in the UCB-MSCs were higher than those in the BM-MSCs. The cell migration of the CARP small interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) transfected UCB-MSCs was delayed compared to that of the normal UCB-MSCs (p<0.05) CONCLUSION: Our study directly compared the two types of MSCs from UCB and BM, and we suggest that the CARP molecule might be responsible for the motility of UCB-MSCs.