Cell therapy with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is expected to provide a new strategy for the treatment of
inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Large amounts of MSCs can be obtained from human amnion. Therefore, we investigated the effect of
transplantation of human amnion-derived MSCs (hAMSCs) or
enema of
conditioned medium (CM) from hAMSCs into rats with
2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS)-induced
colitis. In the first experiment, 10-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were intravenously injected with hAMSCs (1 × 106 cells) 3 h after
rectal administration of TNBS (45 mg/kg). In the second experiment, rats with TNBS-induced
colitis received CM by
enema into the colon for 3 days.
Colitis was investigated by endoscopy, histology, immunohistochemistry, and by measuring
mRNA expression of inflammatory mediators. Administration of hAMSCs or CM
enema significantly improved the endoscopic score. In addition, these two interventions resulted in significantly decreased infiltration of neutrophils and monocytes/macrophages and decreased expression levels of TNF-α, CXCL1, and CCL2. In conclusion,
transplantation of hAMSCs and CM
enema provided significant improvement in rats with TNBS-induced
colitis. CM from hAMSCs and hAMSCs may be new strategies for the treatment of IBD.