Abstract
Background and objectives: Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) has major effects in premature infants. Although previous literature has indicated that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can alleviate lung pathology in BPD newborns and improve the survival rate, few research have been done investigating significantly differentially expressed genes in the lungs before and after MSCs therapy. The aim of this study is to identify differentially expressed genes in lung tissues before and after hAD-MSC treatment. Methods and results: Human amnion-derived MSCs (hAD-MSCs) were cultured and met the MSCs criteria for cell phenotype and multidirectional differentiation. Then we confirmed the size of hAD-MSCs-EXOs and their expressed markers. An intratracheal drip of living cells showed the strongest effect on NHLI compared to cellular secretions or exosomes, both in terms of ameliorating pulmonary edema and reducing inflammatory cell infiltration. Through gene chip hybridization, PCR, and western blotting, acylaminoacyl-peptide hydrolase (APEH) expression was found to be significantly decreased under hyperoxia, and significantly increased after hAD-MSC treatment. Conclusions: The intratracheal transplantation of hAD-MSCs ameliorated NHLI in neonatal rats through APEH.