Research Paper Volume 14, Issue 24 pp 10125—10136

Exosomes derived from human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells promote osteogenesis through the AKT signaling pathway in postmenopausal osteoporosis

Shi-Wei Ren1, *, , Guang-Qing Cao2, *, , Qing-Run Zhu1, , Min-Gang He3, , Fang Wu4, , Su-Mei Kong4, , Zhao-Yan Zhang4, , Qiang Wang1, , Feng Wang1, ,

  • 1 Department of Orthopedics, The Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan 250014, Shandong, China
  • 2 Department of Spine Surgery, The Second Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250033, Shandong, China
  • 3 Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Shandong Tumor Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan 250117, Shandong, China
  • 4 Department of Health, 960th Hospital of PLA, Jinan 250031, Shandong, China
* Equal contribution

Received: May 6, 2022       Accepted: December 16, 2022       Published: December 27, 2022      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204453
How to Cite

Copyright: © 2022 Ren et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMO) is a relatively common disease characterized by low bone mass and microstructural changes of trabecular bone. The reduced bone strength is caused a variety of complications, including fragility fracture and sarcopenia. We used CCK-8 and EdU assays to evaluate cell proliferation rates. The osteogenesis effect was detected using ALP staining, alizarin red staining, and q-PCR. In vivo, the effects of exosomes derived from HUC-MSCs were evaluated using HE staining, IHC staining and Masson staining. In addition, we explored the mechanism of exosomes and found that the AKT signaling pathway played an important role in osteogenesis and cell proliferation. This paper mainly explored the function of exosomes derived from human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (HUC-MSCs) and provided a new strategy for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. In conclusion, exogenous administration of exosomes can contribute to the treatment postmenopausal osteoporosis to a certain extent.

Abbreviations

PMO: Postmenopausal osteoporosis; FBS: fetal bovine serum; MSCs: mesenchymal stem cells; PBS: phosphate-buffered saline; PI3K: phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase; AKT: protein kinase B.