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Research Paper|Volume 11, Issue 24|pp 12641—12660

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor rejuvenates aged human mesenchymal stem cells and improves myocardial repair

Yuelin Zhang1, Wenwu Zhu2, Haiwei He1, Baohan Fan2, Rui Deng3, Yimei Hong1, Xiaoting Liang4, Hongyan Zhao2, Xin Li1, Fengxiang Zhang2
  • 1Department of Emergency Medicine, Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, China
  • 2Section of Pacing and Electrophysiology, Division of Cardiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
  • 3Department of General Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu, Anhui, China
  • 4Clinical Translational Medical Research Center, Shanghai East Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
* Equal contribution
Received: September 21, 2019Accepted: November 26, 2019Published: December 27, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102592

Copyright © 2019 Zhang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

The beneficial functions of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) decline with age, limiting their therapeutic efficacy for myocardial infarction (MI). Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) promotes cell proliferation and survival. We investigated whether MIF overexpression could rejuvenate aged MSCs and increase their therapeutic efficacy in MI. Young and aged MSCs were isolated from the bone marrow of young and aged donors. Young MSCs, aged MSCs, and MIF-overexpressing aged MSCs were transplanted into the peri-infarct region in a rat MI model. Aged MSCs exhibited a lower proliferative capacity, lower MIF level, greater cell size, greater senescence-associated-β-galactosidase activity, and weaker paracrine effects than young MSCs. Knocking down MIF in young MSCs induced cellular senescence, whereas overexpressing MIF in aged MSCs reduced cellular senescence. MIF rejuvenated aged MSCs by activating autophagy, an effect largely reversed by the autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine. MIF-overexpressing aged MSCs induced angiogenesis and prevented cardiomyocyte apoptosis to a greater extent than aged MSCs, and had improved heart function and cell survival more effectively than aged MSCs four weeks after MI. Thus, MIF rejuvenated aged MSCs by activating autophagy and enhanced their therapeutic efficacy in MI, suggesting a novel MSC-based therapeutic strategy for cardiovascular diseases in the aged population.