Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been considered as an attractive tool for the therapy of diseases. Accumulating evidence indicates that the healing effects of MSCs are mainly related to paracrine action rather than transdifferentiation. Exosomes excreted from MSCs have emerged as physiologically relevant and powerful components of the MSC secretome. However, whether MSC-derived exosomes can improve erectile function of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats and its mechanism remains unknown. Our previous work showed that adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ADSCs) transplantation could increase endothelial and smooth muscle contents and improve erectile function of diabetic rats. In this study, ADSC-derived exosomes (ADSC-Exo) exhibited in vitro proangiogenic properties, induced the proliferation of endothelial cells and restored erectile function in vivo, as well as decreased fibrosis of corpus cavernosum. In further experiments, we found that ADSC-Exo contained some proangiogenic (miR-126, miR-130a and miR-132) microRNAs and an antifibrotic microRNA family (miR-let7b and miR-let7c). Thus, it is reasonable to postulate that ADSC-Exo transports key functional miRNAs to target cells in a specific manner to improve functional recovery or to activate endogenous repair mechanisms. This proof-of-concept study provides a novel approach for the treatment of diabetic erectile dysfunction.

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The homozygous p.V37I variant of GJB2 is frequent in East Asians and has been reported to have a pathogenic role in mild-to-moderate hearing impairment (HI). In this study, we investigated the prevalence and phenotypic spectrum of homozygous p.V37I in three Chinese Han cohorts with severe-to-profound HI (n = 857, Cohort S), mild-to-moderate HI (n = 88, Cohort M) and normal hearing (n = 1550, Cohort N). Sequencing of GJB2 showed that homozygous p.V37I was detected in 1.63% (14/857), 12.5% (11/88) and 0.32% (5/1550) of subjects in Cohorts S, M and N, respectively. It was strongly associated with both mild-to-moderate (p = 2.0 × 10(-11) ) and severe-to-profound (p = 0.001) HI, but was estimated to have a rather low penetrance (17%). Among the hearing impaired subjects with homozygous p.V37I, the onset of HI was congenital in 65% (11/17) and delayed in 35% (6/17). By targeted next-generation sequencing of 79 known deafness genes, we identified an additional homozygous pathogenic mutation of CDH23 in 1 of 14 p.V37I homozygous subjects from Cohort S. Our study suggested that homozygous p.V37I is associated with a broader spectrum of hearing phenotypes than previously revealed. Data presented in this study can be effectively applied to clinical evaluation and genetic counseling of people carrying this variant.