Extracellular Vesicles Derived from Epidural Fat-Mesenchymal Stem Cells Attenuate NLRP3 Inflammasome Activation and Improve Functional Recovery After Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating event which caused high mortality and morbidity. Recently, nucleotide-binding domain-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome has been showed to act a critical t role in the secondly injury phase of SCI. In current study, we aimed to investigate the effect and underlying molecular mechanisms of extracellular vesicles derived from epidural fat (EF)- mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for the treatment of SCI. Ninety-six Sprague–Dawley rats were used for current study and randomly divided into four groups: sham group, SCI group, SCI + Saline group, SCI + Extracellular vesicles group. Basso‐Beattie‐Bresnahan (BBB) scores was applied to evaluate the neurological functional recovery. Cresyl violet–stained was conducted evaluate the protective effect of EF-MSCs-Extracellular vesicles on lesion volume after SCI. ELISA, immunohistochemistry assay, TUNEL assay and western blotting were conducted to investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms. Our results demonstrated that the administration of EF-MSCs-Extracellular vesicles via tail vein injection improved neurological functional recovery and reduced the lesion volume after SCI. And systemic administration of EF-MSCs-Extracellular vesicles significantly inhibited NLRP3 inflammasome activation and reduced the expression of inflammatory cytokines. Additionally, the expression levels of proapoptotic protein Bax was decreased and antiapoptotic Bcl-2 was upregulated with the treatment of EF-MSCs-Extracellular vesicles after SCI. In summary, in current study, we demonstrated for the first time that the EF-MSCs-Extracellular vesicles can improve neurological functional recovery after SCI, and the underlying molecular mechanisms may partly through the inhibition of NLRP3 inflammasome activation.