immunomodulatory effects of human adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells on t cell subsets in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ad-mscs) have been reported to suppress the effector t cell responses and have beneficial effects on various immune disorders, like rheumatoid arthritis (ra). this study was designed to investigate the effects of co-cultured ad-mscs on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (pbmcs) of ra patients and healthy individuals, through assessing transcription factors of t cell subsets. pbmcs from ra patients and healthy donors were co-cultured with ad-mscs with or without phytohaemagglutinin (pha). the quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qrt-pcr) was used to measure the expression of t-box 21 (t-bet), gata-binding protein-3 (gata3), retinoid-related orphan receptor γt (ror-γt) and forkhead box p3 (foxp3). based on the results, ad-mscs greatly upregulated th2 and treg cell transcription factors, i.e., gata3 and foxp3 (p<0.05), and downregulated th1 and th17 transcription factors, i.e., t-bet and rorγt (p<0.05). these results demonstrate that ad-mscs can result in an immunosuppressive environment through inhibition of pro-inflammatory t cells and induction of t cells with a regulatory phenotype. therefore, they might have important clinical implications for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as ra.