Background: Previous studies had explored the therapeutic effect of hUC-MSCs transplantation on ischemia; in this study, we further assessed the effectiveness of VEGF over-expressed hUC-MSCs cells transplantation on vascular proliferation in lower limb ischemia model in type 2 diabetic rats.
Methods: hUC-MSCs cells were over-expressed with VEGF, and transplanted to lower limb ischemia rats model of type 2 diabetes.
Results: VEGF over-expression increased the hUC-MSCs cells proliferation activity and VEGF secretion. VEGF gene transfected hUC-MSCs transplantation increased VEGF expression at a high level throughout 4weeks in skeletal muscle tissues of rats. Importantly, the vascular proliferation and blood perfusion of VEGF over-expressed hUC-MSCs transplanted limb were significantly improved compared with those of control group. The expression levels of ERK, AKT, MMP2 and MMP9 in VEGF over-expressed hUC-MSCs transplantation group increased dramatically compared with control group, while TIMP1 and TIMP2 expression had no significant change.
Conclusion: VEGF over-expressed hUC-MSCs transplantation was more effective to stimulate angiogenesis and increase blood perfusion than the simply hUC-MSCs transplantation, as maybe a new choice to improve the lower limb vascular lesions of diabetics.
Keywords: Diabetes; Lower limb vascular lesion; Stem cells; Transplantation; VEGF.
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