Aims
Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) gradually become attractive candidates for cardiac inflammation modulation, yet understanding of the mechanism remains elusive. Strikingly, recent studies indicated that exosomes secreted by MSCs might be a novel mechanism for the beneficial effect of MSCs transplantation after myocardial infarction. We therefore explored the role of MSC-derived exosomes (MSC-Exo) in the immunomodulation of macrophages after myocardial ischaemia/reperfusion (I/R) and its implications in cardiac injury repair.
Methods and results
Exosomes were isolated from the supernatant of MSCs using gradient centrifugation method. Administration of MSC-Exo to mice through intramyocardial injection after myocardial I/R reduced infarct size and alleviated inflammation level in heart and serum. Systemic depletion of macrophages with clodronate liposomes abolished the curative effects of MSC-Exo. MSC-Exo modified the polarization of M1 macrophages to M2 macrophages both
in vivo
and
in vitro
. miRNA sequencing of MSC-Exo and bioinformatics analysis implicated miR-182 as a potent candidate mediator of macrophage polarization and toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) as a downstream target. Diminishing miR-182 in MSC-Exo partially attenuated its modulation of macrophage polarization. Likewise, knock down of TLR4 also conferred cardioprotective efficacy and reduced inflammation level in a mouse model of myocardial I/R.
Conclusion
Our data indicate that MSC-Exo attenuates myocardial I/R injury in mice via shuttling miR-182 that modifies the polarization status of macrophages. This study sheds new light on the application of MSC-Exo as a potential therapeutic tool for myocardial I/R injury.
Rationale:
Doxorubicin-induced cardiomyopathy (DiCM) is a primary cause of heart failure and mortality in cancer patients, in which macrophage-orchestrated inflammation serves as an essential pathological mechanism. However, the specific roles of tissue-resident and monocyte-derived macrophages in DiCM remain poorly understood.
Objective:
Uncovering the origins, phenotypes, and functions of proliferative cardiac resident macrophages and mechanistic insights into the self-maintenance of cardiac macrophage during DiCM progression.
Methods and Results:
Mice were administrated with doxorubicin to induce cardiomyopathy. Dynamic changes of resident and monocyte-derived macrophages were examined by lineage tracing, parabiosis, and bone marrow transplantation. We found that the monocyte-derived macrophages primarily exhibited a pro-inflammatory phenotype that dominated the whole DiCM pathological process and impaired cardiac function. In contrast, cardiac resident macrophages were vulnerable to doxorubicin insult. The survived resident macrophages exhibited enhanced proliferation and conferred a reparative role. Global or myeloid specifically ablation of class A1 scavenger receptor (SR-A1) inhibited proliferation of cardiac resident reparative macrophages and therefore exacerbated cardiomyopathy in DiCM mice. Importantly, the detrimental effect of macrophage SR-A1 deficiency was confirmed by transplantation of bone marrow. At the mechanistic level, we show that c-Myc, a key transcriptional factor for the SR-A1-P38-SIRT1 pathway, mediated the effect of SR-A1 in reparative macrophage proliferation in DiCM.
Conclusions:
The SR-A1-c-Myc axis may represent a promising target to treat DiCM through augmentation of cardiac resident reparative macrophage proliferation.
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