Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Chronic pancreatitis is a chronic necroinflammatory process characterized pathologically by chronic inflammation and fibrosis in pancreas tissue. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) maybe play a potential role in treating chronic pancreatitis. However, few reports have addressed the use of MSCs in pancreatic regeneration.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects and mechanisms of BMSCs for treating chronic pancreatitis in rats.
METHODS: BMSCs were isolated, cultured and identified in vitro. Chronic pancratitis rat model was induced by infusion of oleic acid to bile-pancreas duct in Wistar rats. The Wistar rats were assigned randomly to sham operation group, model group and BMSCs group. BMSCs were transplanted to the rats from BMSCs group through caudal vein injection in the number of 3 ×    106 /mL at 20 days after the model induction and the injection was repeated twice at 40 days and 60 days after model induction. For the model group, the equal volume of saline was injected into the caudal vein. For the sham operation group, duodenum puncture and infusion of oleic acid to bile-pancreas duct were not done. For all the rats, pancreatic tissues were collected and underwent histopathological examination. Pancreatic connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), transforming growth factor β (TGF-β), type I collagen, type III collagen and myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity were detcted.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The pathological injury and the fibrosis in the BMSCs group were ameliorated signicantly. The contents of pancreatic CTGF, TGF-β, type I collagen, type III collagen and MPO were all decreased significantly (P < 0.01). These results suggested that BMSCs have obvious repairing effects on the injured pancreatic tissue of chronic pancreatitis rats, which may be related to the inhibition of CTGF, TGF-β release, decreased production of type I, type III collagen, and inhibition of inflammatory reaction.