Recently, the super-aging society has been realized in Japan. The skeletal muscle atrophy associated with aging or various diseases has been become a big problem in the society. However, the effect of rehabilitation, which is a practical therapeutic intervention, is limited. A new treatment called regenerative medicine is being developed for diseases those have been difficult to treat. As a donor cell source, we focused our attention on adipose tissue, which includes adipose-derived stem/stromal cells (ASCs). In this study, we attempted the administration of ASCs or the exosome secreted from ASCs on muscle atrophy model rats.
Under anesthesia, the left sciatic nerve was exposed and was compressed for 90 sec with a pair of forceps at a site 10 mm proximal to the bifurcation. Rats were randomly divided into groups, and intramuscular administration of ASCs, exosome, or saline was performed at 5 days after sciatic nerve injury. The motor function was evaluated, and the muscle wet weight, muscle cross-sectional area (CSA), and the expression levels of mRNA such as myokines in muscle tissue were measured.
It was observed that the decrease in the muscle wet-weight ratio of the left and right hind limbs and the muscle CSA was suppressed in the exosome group, not in the ASC group. The mRNA expressions were different between the exosome and ASC groups. This difference might have resulted the efficacy.