Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have shown promise for use in cell therapy, and due to their tumor tropism can serve as vehicles for delivering therapeutic agents to tumor sites. Because interleukin-8 (IL-8) is known to mediate the protumor effect of MSCs, elimination of IL-8 secretion by MSCs may enhance their safety for use in cancer gene therapy. However, little is known concerning the effect of endogenously secreted IL-8 on MSCs. We performed studies using placenta-derived MSCs (PMSCs) to determine whether knockdown of IL-8 would influence their biological activity. We first verified that IL-8 and its membrane receptor CXCR2, but not CXCR1, were highly expressed in PMSCs. We then employed lentivirus-mediated small hairpin RNA interference to generate stable IL-8-silenced PMSCs, which displayed a variety of characteristic senescent phenotypes. We observed that at day 9 post-transfection, IL-8-silenced PMSCs had become larger and displayed a more flattened appearance when compared with their controls. Moreover, their proliferation, colony forming unit-fibroblast formation, adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation, and immunosuppressive potentials were significantly impaired. Enhanced senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) activity and specific global gene expression profiles confirmed that IL-8 silencing evoked the senescence process in PMSCs. Increased levels of p-Akt and decreased levels of FOXO3a protein expression suggested that reactive oxygen species played a role in the initiation and maintenance of senescence in IL-8-silenced PMSCs. Notably, the majority of CXCR2 ligands were downregulated in presenescent IL-8-silenced PMSCs but upregulated in senescent cells, indicating an antagonistic pleiotropy of the IL-8/CXCR2 signaling pathway in PMSCs. This effect may promote the proliferation of young cells and accelerate senescence of old cells.
Keywords: IL-8; knockdown; lentiviral shRNA; mesenchymal stem cells; placenta; senescence.