Mass spectrometric analysis of the in vitro secretome from equine bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells to assess the effect of chondrogenic differentiation on response to interleukin-1β treatment

Background Similar to humans, the horse is a long-lived, athletic species. The use of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) is a relatively new frontier, but has been used with promising results in treating joint diseases, e.g., osteoarthritis. It is believed that MSCs exert their main therapeutic effects through secreted trophic biomolecules. Therefore, it has been increasingly important to characterize the MSC secretome. It has been shown that the effect of the MSCs is strongly influenced by the environment in the host compartment, and it is a crucial issue when considering MSC therapy. The aim of this study was to investigate differences in the in vitro secreted protein profile between naive and chondrogenic differentiating bone marrow-derived (BM)-MSCs when exposed to an inflammatory environment. Methods Equine BM-MSCs were divided into a naive group and a chondrogenic group. Cells were treated with normal expansion media or chondrogenic media. Cells were treated with IL-1 beta for a period of 5 days (stimulation), followed by 5 days without IL-1 beta (recovery). Media were collected after 48 h and 10 days. The secretomes were digested and analyzed by nanoLC-MS/MS to unravel the orchestration of proteins. Results The inflammatory proteins IL6, CXCL1, CXCL6, CCL7, SEMA7A, SAA, and haptoglobin were identified in the secretome after 48 h from all cells stimulated with IL-1 beta. CXCL8, OSM, TGF-beta 1, the angiogenic proteins VCAM1, ICAM1, VEGFA, and VEGFC, the proteases MMP1 and MMP3, and the protease inhibitor TIMP3 were among the proteins only identified in the secretome after 48 h from cells cultured in normal expansion media. After 10-day incubation, the proteins CXCL1, CXCL6, and CCL7 were still identified in the secretome from BM-MSCs stimulated with IL-1 beta, but the essential inducer of inflammation, IL6, was only identified in the secretome from cells cultured in normal expansion media. Conclusion The findings in this study indicate that naive BM-MSCs have a more extensive inflammatory response at 48 h to stimulation with IL-1 beta compared to BM-MSCs undergoing chondrogenic differentiation. This extensive inflammatory response decreased after 5 days without IL-1 beta (day 10), but a difference in composition of the secretome between naive and chondrogenic BM-MSCs was still evident.