Poster Presentation Australasia Extracellular Vesicles Conference 2017

Human Amnion Epithelial Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles In The Treatment Of Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (#66)

Dandan Zhu 1 , Amina Maleken 2 , Jean Tan 1 , Siow Chan 1 , Sin Nee Lau 1 , Bryan Leaw 1 , Joanne Mockler 3 , Euan Wallace 2 3 , Rebecca Lim 1 3
  1. Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Clayton, VIC, Australia
  2. Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  3. Obstetrics and gynaecology, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) remains a significant contributor to infant mortality and morbidity despite advances in neonatal care. We have previously showed that human amnion epithelial cells (hAECs) can be a viable source of cell therapy for established BPD, and extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from pro-regenerative cells could be a potential therapy by transporting proteins, lipids, mRNA and microRNA. Here we characterized hAEC-derived EVs and assessed the efficacy of hAEC-EVs on neonatal lung injury where BPD-like injury was achieved using a combination of antenatal inflammation and postnatal hyperoxia. The isolated hAEC-EVs had distinct cup shaped morphology with average size of 40-120nm. ALIX (96kDa), Grp94 (92kDa) and HLA-G (38kDa) were expressed in EVs and Pathway enrichment analysis showed that endothelin signaling pathway, Wnt signaling pathway, and inflammation mediated by chemokine and cytokine signaling pathway were enriched in hAEC-EVs. In mouse model of BPD-like lung injury, we observed that hAEC-EVs improved tissue-to-airspace ratio and septal crest density in a dose-dependent manner. hAEC-EV administration reduced the levels of inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1β and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α). These were associated with the increase of percentage of type II alveolar cells. Surprisingly, hAEC-EVs reduced airway hyper-responsiveness, mitigated pulmonary hypertension and prevented right ventricle hypertrophy that associated with BPD-like lung injury, and this persisted until to 10 weeks of age. These findings argue for the assessment of hAEC-EVs as a prophylactic intervention in future clinical trials for babies at risk of developing BPD.