Hypoxia and inflammatory factor preconditioning enhances the immunosuppressive properties of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells

Figure 5 Relative expression of immunomodulatory genes and proteins in umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells after pretreatment. A: Gene expression levels of umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSCs) and primed UC-MSCs (PUC-MSCs) were analyzed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Expression levels of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), kynurenine, idoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), cyclooxygenaese-2 (COX2), interleukin-10 (IL-10), transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-β1), human leukocyte antigen-G5 (HLA-G5), tumor necrosis factor-α-induced protein-6 (TSG-6) and ligands for programmed cell death 1 (PD-L1) were all increased after hypoxia and inflammatory factor preconditioning. IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra) was not significantly different between the two groups; B: Levels of immunoregulatory proteins in UC-MSCs and PUC-MSCs were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. After hypoxia and inflammatory factor pretreatment, the protein levels of IDO, PGE2, TGF-β1 and TSG-6 were increased, while the expression of IL-10 was not significantly different, as determined via three independent experiments. ^aP < 0.05; ^bP < 0.01; ^cP < 0.001; ^dP > 0.05.