Menstrual Blood Stem Cell Transplantation in Mice Model of Acute Liver Failure: Does Gender of Recipient Affect the Outcome?

There exists a dramatic rise in liver failure and numerous patients undergo liver transplant for life-saving reasons annually. Introducing alternatives to allograft transplantation is necessary due to present limitations. Recently, a noninvasive stem cell population from Menstrual blood-derived Stem Cells (MenSCs) has been identified. There is an increasing interest in the application of MenSCs in tissue engineering; however, the fact that these gender-specific stem cells are safe for use in male sex is still not well defined.

In this research, a model of acute liver failure was created in male and female immunocompetent Balb-C mice through intraperitoneal injection of Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) and MenSCs were transplanted intravenously 48 hrs after induction of liver injury to evaluate their therapeutic potential. All mice were sacrificed on days 1, 7, and 30 post-transplantation to examine biochemical and molecular markers and pathological appearances.

Results showed the liver engraftment of MenSCs by immunofluorescence staining using anti-human mitochondrial antibody in both male and female treated groups. The restoration of serum markers of liver injury, aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase, as well as expression levels of liver-specific genes, tyrosine aminotransferase and cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase, were more significant in the female treated group compared with the male treated group on day 7 (p<0.05); however, after 30 days, there were no significant differences. Furthermore, hematoxylin and eosin and periodic acid-Schiff staining of liver sections demonstrated the considerable liver regeneration post cell therapy in both groups. Notably, data has shown that MenSCs could engraft into injured liver tissues and result in the same effect in the regeneration of liver function in both genders.

Results of this study introduce MenSCs therapy as an attractive alternative approach for liver repairing and regeneration which has no gender constraints.