Use of Adipose Tissue-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Experimental Tendinitis Therapy in Equines

Abstract

Superficial digital flexor tendon lesion is an important cause of lameness in equine athletes. Although numerous treatments have been described, few are effective at promoting significant improvement in the quality of the extracellular matrix. Therefore, great potential remains for recurrence and in certain cases, an abrupt end to the horse's athletic career. Recently, several experiments have focused on the therapeutic potential of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in cases of tendon lesions. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of adipose tissue-derived MSCs in the treatment of induced tendinitis of the superficial digital flexor tendon in horses by clinical, ultrasonographic, histopathological, and immunochemical analyses. Tendinitis was induced in both thoracic limbs of eight mares by administration of collagenase solution and adipose tissue was collected from the tail base for MSCs isolation and expansion, which were used during cellular therapy on only one limb 30 days after lesion induction. No differences occurred between the groups regarding the clinical and ultrasonographic analyses; however, histopathological evaluation revealed a significant improvement in tendon fiber organization and diminished inflammatory infiltrate, whereas immunohistochemical analysis showed increased expression of type I collagen in the treated group as compared with controls. The cellular therapy model implanted in this experiment promoted increased perivascular inflammatory infiltrate, fibroblastic density, neovascularization, and qualitative healing improvement of tendon extracellular matrix, in terms of fiber orientation and type I/III collagen ratio; moreover, it was considered to be a safe and viable process.

Equine Bone Marrow and Adipose Tissue Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Cytofluorimetric Characterization, In Vitro Differentiation, and Clinical Application

“…Several sources have been studied for obtaining equine MSCs; however, bone marrow and adipose tissue are the most studied sources of MSCs in this species [17,18,20,21]. With the present work, we confirm what has already been reported in the literature but at the same time, we open Table 4 Flow cytometry analysis of eATMSCs and eBMMSCs at passage 3 of in vitro culture.…”

“…Only few authors described together eMSCs cellular growth, in vitro differentiation, molecular characterization, and clinical application [20,23,24]. In fact, most of the authors, reporting data on clinical use of eMSCs, did not characterize them [25][26][27], and some authors used a nuclear cell fraction of adipose tissue and bone marrow [1,28].…”

“…Hand walk 20 min twice/d 10- 16 Hand walk 30-40 min twice/d [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Hand walk 40 min twice/d and trot 5-30 min/d Gradual increase of exercise level eATMSCs (P > .05). No lag phase was observed during the in vitro culture of both cell lines; in fact, no statistically significant differences in the number of CD were registered among different culture passages (P > .05).…”

“…Even if several articles have recently been written on this topic, in most cases, all markers listed by ISCT are not taken into account [20,21]. Last, the most of the authors that reported cell characterization and clinical application performed cell implantation in lesions induced with collagenase in experimental animals, and the shortterm efficacy was only evaluated [1,[20][21][22]. In the present work, MSCs derived from eAT and eBM were isolated, cultivated, differentiated, and characterized by flow cytometry as postulated by ISCT for human cells.…”

Adipogenesis of Human Adipose-Derived Stem Cells Within Three-Dimensional Hollow Fiber-Based Bioreactors

“…et al evaluated the effect of ASCs in the treatment of induced tendinitis of the superficial digital flexor tendon in horses and observed increased perivascular inflammatory infiltrate, fibroblastic density, and qualitative healing improvement of tendon extracellular matrix. 9 Rabbit rear paw flexor tendons were acellularized and seeded with ASCs. After a bioreactor pretreatment, the ASCs contributed to the in vitro production of strong tendon material.…”