poster abstractIntroduction We have previously observed bone marrow (BM) hypo-plasia in a murine model of chronic smoking, which was ameliorated by mu-rine adipose-derived stromal cells (ASC). This study was designed to test the hypothesis that ASC exert their marrow protective effects through key paracrine factors. Methods Mice (NSG or C57BL/6) were exposed to ciga-rette smoke (CS) for 1 day to 6 months. Human ASC or ASC conditioned media were administered through intravenous (i.v.) or intraperitoneal (i.p.) injections. Secretion of TSG-6 from ASC in response to TNF alpha and IL-1 beta were measured by ELISA. Expression of TSG-6 in ASC was knocked down by siRNA. BM hematopoietic progenitors were quantified by colony forming-unit assays. Possible engrafted human ASC in mouse BM were ex-amined by anti-human nuclei staining. Results The myelossupressive effect of cigarette smoking occurred acutely (1 day: 65.6% of nonsmoking control, NSC, p0.05) or ASC conditioned media (105.7% NSC, p>0.05). Inflammatory cytokines (TNF alpha and IL-1 beta) elevated in smokers (Kuschner et al, 1996; de Maat et al, 2002) demonstrated strong cross-species stimulatory effects on secretions of an anti-inflammatory cytokine, TSG-6 from ASC (TNF alpha: 8.7 +/- 1.3 fold, IL-1 beta: 8.2 +/- 1.1 fold). Knocking down TSG-6 (>90%) abolished the marrow-protective effect of ASC. No human cells were detected in recipient mouse bone marrow. Conclusions The pro-tective effects of ASC against smoking-induced myelosuppression are medi-ated by trophic factors rather than cell engraftment or differentiation. TSG-6 appears to play a significant role in the modulatory pathway: smoke--inflammatory cytokine release--TSG6 secretion from ASC--bone marrow protection
