Prophylactic versus therapeutic role of the transplanted CD34+ Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells and Wharton Jelly Mesenchymal Stem Cells in early / acute hepatic S. mansoni granulomas reversal in mice; a novel approach.
PURPOSE
Praziquantel (PZQ) is the conventional antibilharzial agent. Nevertheless, no antibilharzial prophylactic agents or 100% curable therapy approved and no reported data about use of human CD34+ Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells (CD34+UCBSCs) or Wharton Jelly Mesenchymal Stem Cells (WJMSCs) in prevention and/or complete eradication of acute S.mansoni granulomas in liver. We aimed to study possible prophylactic vs therapeutic role of human CD34+UCBSCs and WJMSCs in acute hepatic bilharzial granulomas in pre vs post-infected mice.


METHODS
Seventy mice were divided into 7 groups (10 mice each): Normal, S.mansoni-infected, post-infected PZQ-treated, CD34+UCBSCs pre and post-infected, WJMSCs pre and post-infected. Serological, parasitological, histopathological evaluation using OCT4 & TGFB immunohistochemistry and quantitative image analysis assessment of TGFB-stained fibrogenesis in liver granulomas performed.


RESULTS
Histopathologically, surprisingly and significantly, the prophylactic pre-infection stem cells (CD34+UCBSCs and WJMSCs) & similarly the post-infection CD34+UCBSCs treatment revealed eradication/reversal of the entire granulomas and no fibrosis. Moreover, post-infection PZQ treatment showed fewer and significantly smaller granulomas than post-infection WJMSCs treatment. Nevertheless, post-infection WJMSCs exhibited non-significant less TGFB-stained fibrogenesis.


CONCLUSION
CD34+UCBSCs exerted the best prophylactic and therapeutic roles in prevention and complete cure of acute hepatic S.mansoni granulomas over WJMSCs and PZQ. In contrast, only pre-infection WJMSCs exhibited similar preventive (prophylactic) effect. On the contrary, post-infection WJMSCs were the worst (incompletely reversed granulomas). Post-infection Praziquantel was overall better therapeutically than WJMSCs in this regard. Accordingly, when it comes to WJMSCs application, WJMSCs are better used as a pre-infection prophylactic and preventive tool rather than a post-infection therapy. Further studies are needed.
['Magdy|Mona|M|', 'Fahmy|Azza|A|', 'Zaki|Nashwa Ismail|NI|', 'Mohamed|Abir Khalil|AK|']
D000818:Animals D000871:Anthelmintics D018952:Antigens, CD34 D036101:Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplantation D005243:Feces D005312:Fetal Blood D005434:Flow Cytometry D006099:Granuloma D006801:Humans D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted D007150:Immunohistochemistry D008099:Liver D008109:Liver Diseases, Parasitic D008297:Male D059630:Mesenchymal Stem Cells D051379:Mice D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3 D010270:Parasite Egg Count D011223:Praziquantel D012555:Schistosomiasis mansoni D013194:Staining and Labeling D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta
Prophylactic Therapeutic Wharton jelly mesenchymal stem cells Reversal S.mansoni granulomas CD34(+) umbilical cord blood stem cells