Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Chronic Pancreatitis Patients Show Comparable Potency Compared to Cells from Healthy Donors

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are proven to be beneficial in islet transplantation, suggesting a potential therapeutic role of them in total pancreatectomy with islet autotransplantation (TP‐IAT) for chronic pancreatitis (CP) patients. We investigated whether MSCs derived from CP patients are suitable for use in autologous cell therapy. MSCs from healthy donors (H‐MSCs) and CP patients (CP‐MSCs) were studied for phenotype, colony formation potential, multilineage differentiation ability, proliferation, senescence, secretory characters, and immunosuppressive functions. The potential protective effect of CP‐MSCs was evaluated on hypoxia‐induced islet cell death. Cell surface markers were similar between H‐MSCs and CP‐MSCs, as well as the ability of colony formation, multilineage differentiation, secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor and transforming growth factor (TGF‐β), senescence, and inhibition of T cells proliferation in vitro. We found that growth differentiation factor 6 and hepatocyte growth factor ( HGF ) were significantly downregulated, whereas TGFβ and matrix metalloproteinase‐2 were significantly upregulated in CP‐MSCs compared with H‐MSCs, among 84 MSC‐related genes investigated in this study. MSCs from CP patients secreted less HGF, compared with the H‐MSCs. A higher interferon‐γ‐induced indoleamine 2,3‐dioxygenase expression was observed in CP‐MSCs compared to H‐MSCs. Moreover, CP‐MSCs prevented hypoxia‐induced β cell deaths to a similar extent as H‐MSCs. Regardless of moderate difference in gene expression, CP‐MSCs possess similar immunomodulatory and prosurvival functions to H‐MSCs, and may be suitable for autologous cell therapy in CP patients undergoing TP‐IAT. Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2019;8:418–429