‘Experimental pharmaceutical product based on mesenchymal stem cells application in kidney regeneration model in vivo’

The aim. To evaluate therapeutic effect of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells for treating acute kidney injury in experimental nephrotoxicity model in vivo. The tasks of the research. (1) To isolate, cultivate and characterize bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells; (2) To describe mesenchymal stem cell culture as a potential experimental pharmaceutical product based on stem cells; (3) To evaluate therapeutic effect of experimental pharmaceutical product based on bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in acute kidney injury model in vivo. Materials and methods. The experiment was performed in Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Institute of Physiology and Pharmacology. It consisted of two main steps. First step was mesenchymal stem cells isolation from rat’s bone marrow, cultivation, characterization and preparation for injection. Second step was nephrotoxicity model in vivo applying cell therapy. During this experiment, animals were divided into three groups, each group containing 6 animals: control group (healthy animals), acute kidney injury (GM) group (just gentamicin injections 80 mg/kg/d i.p. for 7 consecutive days), GM group applied BM-MSCs cell therapy (gentamicin injections 80 mg/kg/d i.p. for 7 consecutive days). Single BM-MSCs (1×106 cells 500 µl; serum free i.v.) injection was given to the BM-MSCs group animals 24 hours after the last gentamicin injection. Physiological and biochemical parameters were evaluated on 0, 8, 14, 21 experiment days. Results. Rat‘s bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells were successfully isolated and characterized. These cells expressed CD90 and did not expressed CD45, CD34 and CD117 (c-kit) surface markers. In vivo experiments showed a statistically significant reduction in serum creatinine levels and increased creatinine concentration in urine and statistically insignificantly increased glomerular filtration rate in rats that were submitted to stem cell therapy, comparing with those who were not treated with stem cell injection. Conclusions. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells demonstrate high proliferation potency and express mesenchymal, but not hematopoietic, endothelial or stem cell growth factor receptor surface 8 markers. The cell therapy demonstrates capacity to improve kidney function recovery and should be explored more as a potential and innovative tool for acute kidney injury treatment