It has been documented that the uterus plays a key cardio-protective role in pre-menopausal women, which is supported by uterine cell therapy, to preserve cardiac functioning post-myocardial infarction (MI), being effective among females. However, whether such therapies would also be beneficial among males is still largely unknown. In this study, we aimed to fill in this gap in knowledge by examining the effects of transplanted uterine cells on infarcted male hearts. We identified, based on major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) expression levels, 3 uterine reparative cell populations: MHC-I(neg), MHC-I(mix), and MHC-I(pos). In vitro, MHC-I(neg) cells showed higher levels of pro-angiogenic, pro-survival, and anti-inflammatory factors, compared to MHC-I(mix) and MHC-I(pos). Furthermore, when co-cultured with allogeneic mixed leukocytes, MHC-I(neg) had lower cytotoxicity and leukocyte proliferation. In particular, CD8+ cytotoxic T cells significantly decreased, while CD4+CD25+ Tregs and CD4-CD8- double negative T cells significantly increased when co-cultured with MHC-I(neg), compared to MHC-I(mix) and MHC-I(pos) co-cultures. In vivo, MHC-I(neg), as well as MHC-I(mix), were found, under both syngeneic and allogeneic transplantation in infarcted male hearts, to significantly improve cardiac function and reduce scar size, via promoting angiogenesis in the infarcted area. All of these findings thus support the view that males could also benefit from the cardio-protective effects observed among females, via cell therapy approaches involving the transplantation of immuno-privileged uterine reparative cells in infarcted hearts.
Keywords: cell therapy; female to male; major histocompatibility complex class I; myocardial infarction; uterus.
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