Exosomes derived from human umbilical cord Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stem cells ameliorate experimental lymphedema

Dear Editor, Acquired lymphedema is a complex disease caused by cancer treatment or parasitic infection and few effective treatments are available for lymphedema.1–3 It is urgently needed to develop new experimental approaches and therapeutic strategies.3 In this study, we address a new role and mechanism of MSC-ex (human umbilical cord Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stem cells derived exosome) in lymphedema treatment. Immunofluorescence staining also confirmed that localization of human derived CD9 positive MSC-ex both in HDLEC and in mouse tails lead to increased Ang2 expression in MSC-ex treated mice but not in PBS control (Figure 2I and J). [...]a significant reduction of the edema and restoration of lymphatic fluid drainage were found in MSC-exshCtr group and Ang-2 knockdown attenuated the reduction of MSC-exshCtr on edema (Figure 3H,I). [...]Ang-2 knockdown delayed MSC-ex mediated edema reduction, which was important in MSC-ex promoted lymphangiogenesis.