Abstract 15053: Hypoxic Preconditioning Improves the Effectiveness of Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Cardiac Repair in Cynomolgus Monkeys With Myocardial Infarction

Background: Experiments in rodents have shown that hypoxic preconditioning (HP) can increase the therapeutic effectiveness of transplanted bone-marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for myocardial infarction (MI). Here, we investigated whether the benefits associated with HP-MSC transplantation are also observed in non-human primates with MI. Methods: Allogeneic MSCs engineered to express GFP via lentiviral transfection were cultured in 21% oxygen (N-MSCs) or in 0.5% oxygen (HP-MSCs) for 24 hours. MI was surgically induced in Cynomolgus monkeys by ligating the left anterior-descending coronary artery distal to the first diagonal branch. 30 minutes later, 28 monkeys were each treated with 10 million MSCs intramyocardially injection. (N-MSCs: 13 monkeys; HP-MSCs: 15 monkeys). 11 additional monkeys treated with saline were served as control. LVEF and infarct sizes (IS) were measured echocardiographically, and the change in each parameter (ΔLVEF, ΔIS) was calculated by subtracting measurements taken 3 days pos...