Abstract
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have beneficial effects on wound healing. MSCs function through direct cell-cell communication or indirectly through paracrine secretion of exosomes. Here, we found that MSC-derived exosomes had pro-wound healing effects via promotion of angiogenesis; however, this promoting effect was significantly reduced when senescence was induced in parental MSCs by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Further experiments showed that decreased miR-146a expression in exosomes derived from senescent MSCs (s-exo) contributed to these findings. In vitro, the pro-angiogenic effect of s-exo on tube formation in human umbilical vein endothelial cells was significantly reduced compared with that of exosomes derived from control MSCs (c-exo). In vivo, higher tube numbers and longer tube lengths were observed in the c-exo group compared with the s-exo group. Using microarray analysis, we found that miR-146a level in s-exo was lower than that in c-exo. Knockdown of miR-146a in c-exo decreased its capacity to promote angiogenesis, and overexpression of miR-146a in s-exo partially rescued its impaired pro-angiogenic capacity, thereby confirming that downregulation of miR-146a contributed to the reduced pro-wound healing capacity of s-exo. Our study is the first to demonstrate that cell senescence induced by H2O2 alters the pro-angiogenic ability of exosomes by modulating the expression of exosomal miRNAs, especially miR-146a, thus providing new insights into the correlation between parental cell state and exosome content and function.