Stem Cells; a Promising Candidate for Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Abstract

The proposed aim is to investigate the effect of mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. On the other hand, the objective involves brief discussion on the pathophysiology of rheumatoid arthritis, stem cells and their isolation scheme as well as method of disease induction. Moreover, it also involves the investigation of disease parameters and exploring the modulatory effect of mesenchymal stem cells on RA. The methodology applied to achieve the previously mentioned objective and aim, by induction of the disease through intradermal injection of complete Freund`s adjuvant, followed by measuring the arthritis score to ensure RA development. Afterwards, the isolation of MSCs from healthy rats` femur, and using ten healthy male albino rats dividing them into five groups; negative control, positive controls and the other three were diseased groups treated differently after disease incidence, by giving sterile saline for control groups, methrotrexate for third group, mesenchymal stem cells for the fourth and both for the last group. At the end of treatment period, the levels of interleukin 1, 10, TNFα and interferon were measured using ELISA in serum. Moreover, real time PCR was used to detect the following genes: alkaline phosphatase (mALP), transcription factor sp7 (mOsterix) and collagen type I or alpha 1 (mCOL-I). Finally, comet assay was also employed to assess the degree of damage or repair to the DNA. The results showed significant increase osteogenic markers and IL-10; and significant reduction in proinflammatory cytokines, %T, TM and OTM values in the MSC group when compared to the other groups (P<0.05). To sum up, this study illustrated that MSC showed a beneficial role in the treatment of RA through its anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive properties. Moreover, it had a favorable role when combined with MTX as it provided better prognosis than when MTX is used alone.