Mesenchymal stem cells reciprocally regulate the M1/M2 balance in mouse bone marrow-derived macrophages

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been widely studied for their applications in stem cell-based regeneration. Duringmyocardial infarction (MI), infiltrated macrophages have pivotal roles in inflammation, angiogenesis and cardiac remodeling. Wehypothesized that MSCs may modulate the immunologic environment to accelerate regeneration. This study was designed toassess the functional relationship between the macrophage phenotype and MSCs. MSCs isolated from bone marrow and bonemarrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) underwent differentiation induced by macrophage colony-stimulating factor. Todetermine the macrophage phenotype, classical M1 markers and alternative M2 markers were analyzed with or without coculturingwith MSCs in a transwell system. For animal studies, MI was induced by the ligation of the rat coronary artery. MSCswere injected within the infarct myocardium, and we analyzed the phenotype of the infiltrated macrophages by immunostaining. In the MSC-injected myocardium, the macrophages adjacent to the MSCs showed strong expression of arginase-1 (Arg1), anM2 marker. In BMDMs co-cultured with MSCs, the M1 markers such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-1b, monocyte chemoattractantprotein-1 and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) were significantly reduced. In contrast, the M2 markers such as IL-10,IL-4, CD206 and Arg1 were markedly increased by co-culturing with MSCs. Specifically, the ratio of iNOS to Arg1 in BMDMswas notably downregulated by co-culturing with MSCs. These results suggest that the preferential shift of the macrophagephenotype from M1 to M2 may be related to the immune-modulating characteristics of MSCs that contribute to cardiac repair.