Open Access

ARTICLE

Evaluation of immunomodulatory effects of co-culture or supernatant of dexamethasone or IFN-γ-treated adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells on spleen mononuclear cells

Fatemeh Bayati^1,*, Maryam Valadi^1,*, Armin Ahmadi^1,2, Farangis Najaf¹, Bita Ansaripour¹, Ehsan Sharif-Paghaleh^1,3

1 Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2 Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
3 Department of Imaging Chemistry and Biology, School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King’s College London, London, England
* These authors contributed equally

* Corresponding Author: E. Sharif-Paghaleh,

European Cytokine Network 2022, 33(3), 70-78. https://doi.org/10.1684/ecn.2022.0482

Accepted 14 November 2022;

Abstract

Although mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have exhibited promising immunomodulatory potential in preclinical studies, clinical studies have revealed variable results. These results often depend on environmental cues. Pre-conditioning MSCs with cytokines is one of the methods used to enhance their immunomodulatory effects. In this study, we harvested adipose-derived MSCs from mice and cultured them with different doses of the cytokine, IFN-γ, and the corticosteroid drug, dexamethasone, in order to investigate their effects on MSC immunosuppressive function. We found the co-culture or supernatant of MSCs, pre-conditioned with IFN-γ, together with spleen mononuclear cells resulted in a significant reduction of mononuclear cell proliferation. Although the supernatant of MSCs, pre-conditioned with dexamethasone, showed similar results, dexamethasone pre-conditioning of co-cultured MSCs increased mononuclear cell proliferation. The results further our understanding of immune-related effects of MSCs which may provide a basis for further in vivo studies to achieve better clinical results. We propose that pre-conditioning with cytokines might be an effective method to boost the immunomodulatory effects of MSCs.

---

Keywords

---