Ascorbic acid and IFNγ preconditioning enhance the potency of human mesenchymal stem cells to ameliorate LPS induced cytokine storm.

The mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) is one of the leading contender in therapeutic management of cytokine storm implicated in the COVID-19 and other inflammatory conditions. This study was aimed to investigate the effect of Interferon gamma (IFN-γ) and Ascorbic Acid (AA) preconditioning on the secretome of the human Umbilical Cord Derived MSCs (UCMSCs) and their potential to ameliorate the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced cytokine storm in the human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). UCMSCs were preconditioned with IFN-γ, AA and secretome (UCMSCs-S, IFNγ-UCMSCs-S and AA-UCSMCs-S) was analysed for the levels of growth factors and cytokines by flow cytometry. The potential of secretome to ameliorate cytokine storm and augment angiogenesis was assessed in the LPS induced PBMCs and yolk sac membrane (YSM) assay respectively. The mRNA transcript and protein levels of IL-6, IL-1β and TNF-α was analysed by RT-PCR and flow cytometry respectively. IFNγ-UCMSCs-S and AA-UCSMCs-S ameliorated the LPS induced cytokine storm as revealed by the decreased mRNA and protein expression of IL-6, IL-1β and TNF-α as compared to the UCMSCs-S. IFNγ-UCMSCs-S and AA-UCSMCs-S augmented angiogenesis in YSM assay. Furthermore, IFNγ and AA preconditioning of UCMSCs exhibited distinct growth factors and cytokine profile in the secretome. Our results unequivocally show that IFNγ and AA preconditioning of MSCs could give better therapeutic outcomes in the cell mediated therapies for COVID-19 and other inflammatory conditions.

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Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.