It is well known that clinical treatment for osteoarthritis comprises drug and surgical intervention, However, surgical manipulation is typically used to treat end-stage osteoarthritis (39). We chose to evaluate possible preventive effects of captopril, losartan, and WJ on the progression of ACLT-induced osteoarthritis for two reasons. First, mesenchymal stem cells have become a major tool in stem cell therapy in diseases that affect bone and joint function(40). Second, in recent years, studies have shown that major components of RAS, including ACE, AT1R, and AT2R, are expressed in synovial tissue in humans and animals and participate in the pathogenesis of OA and rheumatoid arthritis (RA); their expression levels are related to the degree of inflammation and the severity of arthritis (10, 13, 14). A comparison between the potential of mesenchymal stem cells and their conditioned medium in chondrocyte recovery demonstrated that MSCs can exert an anti-inflammatory effect on chondrocytes through both a paracrine effect and cell-cell contact signaling. However, the anti-inflammation ability of MSC would decrease with incubation time increase, especially in direct cell contact coculture system. Considering using cytokine for OA treatment, mesenchymal stem cell conditioned medium (MSC-CM) could be better choice for OA therapy (41). Therapeutic inhibition of AT1R or ACE can improve clinical symptoms by reducing the yield of inflammatory factors (16, 17, 19, 20), delaying the development of OA. very few in vivo studies were published in this regard, which motivated our interests in examining concomitant use of MSCs–CM and RAS inhibitor drugs in an animal model of OA.
To the best our knowledge, this is the first study that indicates the preventive effect of co-treatment of MSCs-CM and RAS inhibitor drugs in a rat model of OA. According to the outcome of the present study, intra-articular injection of 100-µl conditioned medium every 10 days (total of 7 doses in 10 weeks) exerted more protective impact on the OA in rats when compared to the nontreated group, HA, captopril and losartan treated groups. Interestingly, radiological and pathological evaluation of groups treated with both WJ-CM and RAS inhibitor drugs (Captopril and Losartan) resulted in better scores suggesting the superiority of this method of treatment. We also found that treatment with captopril orally at a dose of 50 mg/kg twice a week and combination of treatments with captopril and WJ-CM reduced the activity of ACE and supressed renin-angiotensin system locally. While Other treatments had no significant impact on RAS.
Tang et al. (2017) evaluated the effects of subcutaneous AMSCs injection in OA rats and showed that the cartilage surface was smooth along with the good distribution of chondrocytes (42).In line with these results, our previous study also showed that treatment with synovial stem cells accompanied with secreta resulted in columnar-cluster arranged chondrocyte while in the only-stem cell treated group the surface was continuous composed of fibrocartilage tissue (43). In this study, we also observed that treatment with WJ-CM decreased the thickness and increased the cell distribution in articular surface compared OA, OA + HA, OA + Cap. and OA + Los. groups. histopathological results indicated that administration of RAS inhibitor drugs (captopril and losartan) accompanied by MSCs secreta alleviated pathological changes. It seems that inhibition of synovial renin-angiotensin system synergically affects anti-inflammatory potential of MCs-CM in OA + WJ + Cap and OA + WJ + Los groups. In agreement with our finding, Histological scores of rat ankle joints in a study by Wang et al. (2018) showed that Inhibition of ACE by perindopril (ACE inhibitor drug) mitigates the severity of collagen induced arthritis (CIA) in rats (13). In this regard, Price et al. reported that in immunohistochemical analysis, both prophylactic and therapeutic administration of 15 mg/kg of losartan reduced knee joint swelling in rats with adjuvant monoarthritic (44). In contrast, There was not significant difference between the treatment WJ-MSCs (containing 1 × 107 cell suspension) and control group for histopathological findings (45). our radiological results were the same as those conducted by Estakhri et al. regarding the effect of synovial membrane derived MSCs (SMMSCs) on the global OA score, where in the study there were also reduction in the severity of OA in treated groups (46). Another survey by Mehrabani et al. also showed the healing effects of bone-marrow MSC transplantation three month after cutting of ACL in guinea pig based on the repaired lesions in the joints space of treatment group. In consistent with the previous studies (47–49), we also showed that transection of ACLT increased joint space in x-ray images in rats after 12 weeks. There were also increased in osteophyte formation in medial femoral and tibial condyle during this period. Zare et al. (2020) reported that both stem cells derived from synovium and fat pad are able to decrease cartilage degeneration, subchondral sclerosis, and osteophyte formation compared to the nontreated group (34). we observed that, treatment with hyalgan and RAS inhibitors alone, could not reduce joint space and osteophyte formation considerably. However, orally administration of captopril and losartan accompanied by intraarticular injection of WJ reduced joint effusion and minimized joint space. Indeed, results belong to medial tibial condyle score in OA + WJ, OA + WJ + Cap and OA + WJ + Los showed near normal group. Herein, radiological findings were in agreement with a study by Yuangang (2020) suggesting that the expressions of renin, ACE, and AT1R in synovial tissue of osteoarthritis significantly increase as the K-L (Kellgren-Lawrence X-ray classification) level increased (50). Wang et al. reported that AT1R, AT2R and ACE in human and rat synovium were up-regulated, and the increased ACE in rat synovial tissues was suppressed by perindopril (an ACE inhibitor drug). They observed significant up-regulation of osteoclastogenesis and downregulation of osteoblastogenesis in the joints of CIA (collagen-induced arthritis) rats, accompanied with the activated RAS(13). In this study, we also showed that administration of captopril alone (OA + Cap) or co-treatment of WJ and captopril (OA + WJ + Cap.) prevented the progression of OA probably due to reduction in ACE activity and RAS inhibition. Interestingly we noticed that while in OA + Los and OA + WJ + Los there was no significant change in ACE activity, administration of losartan (AT1R inhibitor) and co-treatment of WJ and losartan alleviated the pathogenic progress of OA confirmed by pathological and radiological scores. We speculate that when AT1R is inhibited, the increased Ang II levels may potentially lead to the activation of AT2R. Considering that AT1R and AT2R have opposite effects, continued AT2R activation may induce anti-inflammatory mechanisms that provide potential complementary therapeutic benefits(51).