Abstract
Sepsis is an aggressive and life-threatening systemic inflammatory response with a high mortality. Inflammation and coagulation play crucial roles in the pathogenesis of sepsis in a mutually promoting manner. Unlike other single-target molecular therapies that have no obvious effects on clinical sepsis, bone marrow stromal cell (BMSC) therapy offers a broader spectrum of activities ranging from immune and inflammation suppression to tissue regeneration. In this report, we demonstrate that BMSC injection attenuates septic coagulopathy. It decreased the mortality, mitigated lung injury and reduced the surge of proinflammatory factors in mice with sepsis induced by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). An in vitro cell model also revealed that co-culture with BMSCs reduced secretion of proinflammatory factors and injury of endothelial cells in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), an endotoxin of gram-negative bacteria. Together, our results demonstrate that BMSCs suppress sepsis-induced inflammation, endothelial dysfunction and defective coagulation.