Proteomic characterization of hUC-MSC extracellular vesicles and evaluation of its therapeutic potential to treat Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

In recent years, human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell (hUC-MSC) extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been used as a cell replacement therapy and have been shown to effectively overcome some of the disadvantages of cell therapy. However, the specific mechanism of action of EVs is still unclear, and there is no appropriate system for characterizing the differences in the molecular active substances of EVs produced by cells in different physiological states. We used a data-independent acquisition (DIA) quantitative proteomics method to identify and quantify the protein composition of two generations EVs from three different donors and analysed the function and possible mechanism of action of the proteins in EVs of hUC-MSCs via bioinformatics. By comparative proteomic analysis, we characterized the different passages EVs. Furthermore, we found that adaptor-related protein complex 2 subunit alpha 1 (AP2A1) and adaptor-related protein complex 2 subunit beta 1 (AP2B1) in hUC-MSC-derived EVs may play a significant role in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) by regulating the synaptic vesicle cycle signalling pathway. Our work provides a direction for batch-to-batch quality control of hUC-MSC-derived EVs and their application in AD treatment.