Silver nanoparticles induce the cardiomyogenic differentiation of bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells via telomere length extension

Y Finding new strategies for the treatment of heart failures using stem cells has attracted a lot of attention. Meanwhile, nanotechnolo-gy-based approaches to regenerative medicine hypothesize a possible combination of stem cells and nanotechnology in the treat-ment of diseases. This study aims to investigate the in vitro effect of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) on the cardiomyogenic differen-tiation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) through detection of cardiac markers. For this purpose, MSCs were isolated from bone marrow resident and differentiated to the cardiac cells using a dedicated medium with Ag-NPs. Also, the cardiomyogenic differentiation of BM-MSCs was confirmed using immunocytochemistry. Then, real-time PCR and western blot-ting assay were used for measuring absolute telomere length (TL) measurement, and gene and protein assessment of the cells, re-spectively. It was found that 2.5 mu g/mL Ag-NPs caused elongation of the telomeres and altered VEGF, C-TnI, VWF, SMA, GATA-4, TERT, and cyclin D protein and gene expression in the cardiomyogenically differentiated BM-MSCs. Also, there was a significant increase in the protein and gene expression of Wnt3 and beta-catenin as main components of pathways. We concluded that Ag-NPs could change the in vitro expression of cardiac markers of BM-MSCs via the Wnt3/beta-catenin signaling pathway.