Effect of injecting adipose stem cells combined with platelet-rich fibrin releasate at Shenshu acupoint (BL23) on acute kidney injury in rabbits

Hsin-Ni Chuang ¹ Wen Pei ² Tzong-Fu Kuo ³ Yu-Hao Liu ⁴ Chia-Yih Wang ⁵ Yen-Wei Chang ⁶ Chi-Hsuan Chuang ⁷ Chang-Huan Yang ^8* Ming-Hsi Chuang ^10,2,8,9

• ¹ Ph.D. Program of Management, Chung Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
• ² College of Management, Chung Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
• ³ School of Veterinary Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
• ⁴ Department of Medical Research, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taipei County, Taiwan
• ⁵ Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Tainan County, Taiwan
• ⁶ Department of Physical Education, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan
• ⁷ Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taipei County, Taiwan
• ⁸ GWOXI Stem Cell Applied Technology Co., Ltd., Hsinchu county, Taiwan
• ⁹ Institute of Biopharmaceutical Science, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Hsinchu County, Taiwan
• ¹⁰ School of Public Health, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan

Acute kidney injury (AKI) remains a major unmet medical need. AKI is a sudden episode of kidney failure or kidney damages that often occurring suddenly within 7 days. Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) have the ability to regenerate, differentiate and repair, which are regarded as a new hope for treatment. Also, PRF releasate (Platelet-rich Fibrin releasate ), the releasate obtained from platelet-rich fibrin after static incubation,contains many growth factors that can promote the differentiation and growth of stem cells. Furthermore, acupoints such as Shenshu (BL23) have been used in electroacupuncture and acupoint injection in clinical practice as well as in experimental animals with renal failure. We evaluated the synergistic effect of stem cells and PRFr by selecting the Shenshu acupoint (BL23), and injected separately or together into New Zealand white rabbits with AKI to determine the potential of this approach for treating functional failure caused by kidney disease. The results show that CRE and BUN levels of the PRFr+ADSCs treatment group decreased significantly during the second week after transplantation. After 7 weeks of treatment, PRFr+ADSCs showed the best kidney repair outcomes. In the PRFr+ADSCs treatment group, the morphology of the glomeruli was intact, with no edema or vacuole-like changes in the epithelial cells of the renal tubules and no obvious inflammatory cells in the surrounding area. Based on our results, injection of PRFr, ADSCs, and PRFr+ADSCs at Shenshu acupoint (BL23) can be used to repair damaged renal cells and decrease serum CRE and BUN levels as a potential treatment for kidney injury.