Therapeutic Effects of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Derived From Bone Marrow, Umbilical Cord Blood, and Pluripotent Stem Cells in a Mouse Model of Chemically Induced Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Acute inflammatory bowel disease (AIBD) is a wide clinical entity including severe gastrointestinal pathologies with common histopathological basis. Epidemiologically increasing diseases, such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), gastrointestinal graft versus host disease (GVHD), and the primary acute phase of chronic inflammatory bowel disease (CIBD), exhibit a high necessity for new therapeutic strategies. Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) cellular therapy represents a promising option for the treatment of these diseases. In our study, we comparatively assess the efficacy of human MSCs derived from bone marrow (BM), umbilical cord blood (UCB), human embryonic stem cells (ESCs), or human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in a mouse model of chemically induced acute enterocolitis. The laboratory animals were provided ad libitum potable dextrane sulfate sodium solution (DSS) in order to reproduce an AIBD model and then individually exposed intraperitoneally to MSCs derived from BM (BM-MSCs), UCB (UCB-MSCs), ESCs (ESC-MSCs), or iPSCs (iPSC-MSCs). The parameters used to evaluate the cellular treatment efficacy were the animal survival prolongation and the histopathological-macroscopic picture of bowel sections. Although all categories of mesenchymal stem cells led to statistically significant survival prolongation compared to the control group, significant clinical and histopathological improvement was observed only in mice receiving BM-MSCs and UCB-MSCs. Our results demonstrated that the in vivo anti-inflammatory effect of ESC-MSCs and iPSC-MSCs was inferior to that of UCB-MSCs and BM-MSCs. Further investigation will clarify the potential of ESCs and iPSC-derived MSCs in AIBD treatment.