Correlation Between the Lymphocyte-Monocyte Ratio and Cytokines in Chronic Inflammation in Rats Treated With Allogeneic Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Abstract

The chronic inflammatory process is a pathological condition characterized by an ongoing active inflammatory response and tissue destruction. Many studies show that chronic inflammation can play a severe role in various age-related diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular, and autoimmune diseases. One of the important but poorly studied factors affecting the regulation of chronic inflammation is the regulatory activity of MSCs. In this regard, the study of mesenchymal stem cells preventing chronic inflammation in the experiment is an important area of modern pathology.
 On the one hand, increased cytokines, such as α-TNF, IL 6, and CRP, are reliable tools in diagnostic different inflammatory processes, especially chronic inflammation. On the other hand, nowadays, we need a more straightforward and not so expensive criterion for this purpose, for instance, a common total blood count and LMR. For the first time, we investigated how trustworthy can be LMR and how possible to use it in chronic inflammation in rats to achieve prognostic goals. 
 This study investigated the correlation between α-TNF, IL-6, and CRP with LMR in rats' plasma in groups with chronic carrageenan inflammation and chronic inflammation with local injection of MSCs into the affected area. The study involved 132 adult male rats (180-220g), which were divided into groups. The inflammation model was chronic aseptic myositis caused by an intramuscular injection of 10mg λ-carrageenan (Sigma-Aldrich GmbH). Our experimental groups of rats were treated with MSCs (the injection into the inflamed site) in the amount of 1-2 million cells once. Blood sampling was performed from 6 hours to 28 days. We calculated our results using Statistica (data analysis software) version 13. For comparison, we used one-way ANOVA, Turkey's post hoc test, where p <0.05 was considered statistically significant.
 In our experiment, the correlation between levels of α-TNF, IL-6, and CRP with lymphocyte-monocyte ratio in rats was described for the first time, demonstrating the suppression of chronic inflammation through MSCs.