Lipopolysaccharides improves mesenchymal stem cell-mediated cardioprotection via MyD88 and stat3 signaling in a mouse model of cardiac ischemia/reperfusion injury.

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) improve cardiac function after ischemia/reperfusion injury, in part due to the release of cytoprotective paracrine factors. Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) is expressed in MSCs and regulates the expression of cytoprotective factors, cytokines, and chemokines. Lipopolysaccharides (LPS) stimulation of TLR4 activates two distinct signaling pathways that are either MyD88-dependent or MyD88-independent/TRIF-dependent. While it was reported previously that LPS treatment improved MSC-mediated cardioprotection, the mechanism underlying such improved effect remains unknown. To study the role of MyD88 signaling in MSC cardioprotective activity, wildtype (WT) and MyD88-/- MSCs were treated with LPS (200 ng/ml) for 24 h. WT and MyD88-/- MSCs with or without LPS pretreatment were infused into the coronary circulation of isolated mouse hearts (Langendorff model) and then subjected to ischemia (25 min) and reperfusion (50 min). Saline served as a negative control. Both untreated and LPS pretreated WT MSCs significantly improved post-ischemic recovery of myocardial function of isolated mouse hearts, as evidenced by improved left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP) and ventricular contractility assessment (i.e., the rate of left ventricle pressure change over time, +/- dp/dt). LPS pre-treated WT MSCs conferred better cardiac function recovery than untreated MSCs; however, such effect of LPS was abolished when using MyD88-/- MSCs. In addition, LPS stimulated stat3 activity in WT MSCs, but not MyD88-/- MSCs. stat3 siRNA abolished the effect of LPS in improving the cardioprotection of WT MSCs. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that LPS improves MSC-mediated cardioprotection via MyD88-dependent activation of stat3.