Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 28, 2016; 22(16): 4120-4135
Published online Apr 28, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i16.4120
Combined mesenchymal stem cell transplantation and interleukin-1 receptor antagonism after partial hepatectomy
Jian-Feng Sang, Xiao-Lei Shi, Bing Han, Xu Huang, Tao Huang, Hao-Zhen Ren, Yi-Tao Ding
Jian-Feng Sang, Xiao-Lei Shi, Bing Han, Xu Huang, Tao Huang, Hao-Zhen Ren, Yi-Tao Ding, Department of General Surgery, the Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing 210008, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Sang JF and Shi XL contributed equally to this work; Sang JF and Shi XL designed the research; Sang JF, Han B, Huang T, Huang X, and Ren HZ performed the research; Ding YT provided new reagents/analytic tools; Sang JF and Han B analyzed the data and wrote the paper. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81300338; 863 National Science and Technology Plans, No. 2013aa020102; and Project Fund of Clinical Medical Center of Digestive Diseases in Jiangsu Province, No. bl2012001.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Institutional Review Board.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All animal procedures were approved by the Animal Care Ethics Committee of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Nanjing, China.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest related to this study.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Yi-Tao Ding, Professor, Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, No. 321 Zhongshan Road, Nanjing 210008, Jiangsu Province, China. yitaoding@hotmail.com
Telephone: +86-25-83304616-66866 Fax: +86-25-83317016
Received: July 3, 2015
Peer-review started: July 6, 2015
First decision: August 26, 2015
Revised: September 24, 2015
Accepted: December 12, 2015
Article in press: December 14, 2015
Published online: April 28, 2016
Processing time: 290 Days and 10.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Combination therapy is superior to any method of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) transplantation used alone. This study shows that combination therapy improved liver function, inhibited apoptosis, and prolonged the survival of swine with acute liver failure (ALF). Transplanted MSCs may participate in liver regeneration by promoting proliferation and inhibiting apoptosis during the initial stage of ALF following antagonism of interleukin-1 inflammatory signaling. Combination therapy with MSC transplantation and an interleukin-1 receptor antagonist, which enables restoration from ALF and liver reconstruction in swine, is a promising treatment option for ALF patients in the future.