Reconstitution of dermal components of the skin upon wounding is
essential to avoid hypertrophic scarring and proper wound closure. To date, MSC
therapy results in improved healing, but injected cells do not engraft. Moreover,
therapies often fail to address improving perfusion via angiogenesis. Our aim
was to improve cellular engraftment and trigger new blood vessel formation.
Endothelial colony forming cells (ECFC), a rare highly proliferative
subset of EPC, are regarded as the gold-standard for their in vivo vessel forming capacity. ECFC and MSC were readily isolated
from human term placentas. Nu/nu mice were injected subcutaneously, eight hours
after wound formation, with either single populations of ECFC, MSC or dual
combination of ECFC/MSC (10 to 1 ratio). Assessment of wound healing was
conducted 7 days post injection.
Consistent with previous data, MSCs did not persist in wounds. Local
administration of single ECFC and MSC doses showed no significant increase in
wound acceleration in comparison to controls. However, improved engraftment of
ECFC and de novo vessel formation in
wound was observed when co-injected with MSC demonstrating possible synergistic
effects.
The human term placenta is an accessible and abundant supply of ECFC,
which have been shown to have promising effects in improving perfusion in a
wound healing environment when in co-therapy with MSC.