Wu Juekun, Chen Zehong, Zhong Fuyan, Yang Wende, Ouyang Xi, Ma Xiaolei, Zheng Songguo, Wei Hongbo
Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2021 Jun 21;9:630076. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2021.630076. eCollection 2021.
Cavernous nerve injury (CNI) is the main cause of erectile dysfunction (ED) following pelvic surgery. Our previous studies have demonstrated that transplantation of different sources of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) was able to alleviate ED induced by CNI in rat models. However, little is known about the therapeutic effects of human gingiva-derived MSCs (hGMSCs) in CNI ED rats. Herein, we injected the hGMSCs around the bilateral major pelvic ganglia (MPG) in a rat model of CNI and evaluated their efficacy. The results showed that treatment of hGMSCs could significantly promote the recovery of erectile function, enhance smooth muscle and endothelial content, restore neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) expression, and attenuate cell apoptosis in penile tissue. Moreover, penile fibrosis was significantly alleviated after hGMSC administration. In addition, potential mechanism exploration indicated that hGMSCs might exert its functions via skewed macrophage polarity from M1 toward M2 anti-inflammatory phenotype. In conclusion, this study found that transplantation of hGMSCs significantly improved CNI-related ED, which might provide new clues to evaluate their pre-clinical application.
海绵体神经损伤（CNI）是盆腔手术后勃起功能障碍（ED）的主要原因。我们之前的研究表明，移植不同来源的间充质干细胞（MSCs）能够减轻大鼠模型中由CNI诱导的ED。然而，关于人牙龈来源的间充质干细胞（hGMSCs）对CNI诱导的ED大鼠的治疗效果知之甚少。在此，我们在CNI大鼠模型的双侧主要盆腔神经节（MPG）周围注射hGMSCs并评估其疗效。结果显示，hGMSCs治疗可显著促进勃起功能恢复，增加平滑肌和内皮细胞含量，恢复神经元型一氧化氮合酶（nNOS）表达，并减轻阴茎组织中的细胞凋亡。此外，给予hGMSCs后阴茎纤维化明显减轻。另外，潜在机制探索表明，hGMSCs可能通过使巨噬细胞极性从M1型向M2型抗炎表型转变来发挥其功能。总之，本研究发现hGMSCs移植显著改善了与CNI相关的ED，这可能为评估其临床前应用提供新线索。
