The aim of study was to explore the effect of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) transfected with recombinant adenovirus-mediated human vascular endothelium
growth factor 165 (ad-vegf-165) on treating ischemic
necrosis limbs. Adult SD rats were selected for study. Limb ischemic
necrosis model was established by right femoral artery
ligation in SD rats. 7 days after
ligation, MSC, ad-h-vegf-165-MSC and ad-LacZ-MSC labelled by
DAPI were injected into ischemic
necrosis limb in rats respectively. One week after injection, the expression of
VEGF in ischemic
necrosis limbs was detected by Western blot. And at 1, 2 or 4 weeks after injection, the expressions of FVIII and
myosin on MSC were evaluated by immunohistochemistry. The results indicated that the MSC labelled by
DAPI could be found in the
transplantation site of ischemic
necrosis limbs under fluorescent microscope. And the number of MSC in MSC-
vegf group was more than that in MSC and MSC-LacZ groups. The
VEGF expression in MSC-
vegf group was higher than that in MSC and MSC-LacZ groups. More importantly, the number of endothelial cells demonstrated characteristic FVIII positive MSC in MSC-
vegf group was more than that in MSC and MSC-LacZ group after
injections of 1, 2 and 4 weeks. However, the number of
myosin positive MSC among MSC-
vegf, MSC and MSC-LacZ groups showed no significant difference. It is concluded that MSC transfected with Ad-
vegf promotes angiogenesis to repair ischemic
necrosis limbs through the increased expression of
VEGF.