Mitochondrial Transfer from Wharton’s Jelly Mesenchymal Stem Cell to MERRF Cybrid Reduces Oxidative Stress and Improves Mitochondrial Bioenergetics

Figure 4

Partly reduced mtDNA mutation load by mitochondrial transfer is sufficient to mitigate ROS expression and oxidative damage. (a) Time course of coculture in which WJMSC and MERRF cybrid interacted for 7 days. Then, WJMSC was eliminated while MERRF cybrid was preserved in the presence of BrdU for another 14 days. Only cells with defective activity of thymidine kinase (TK^─) can survive. (b-c) Mitochondrial transfer partly altered mt.8344A>G mutation rate, whereas cytochalasin B (CB) blocked the effect. (d–f) Intracellular and mitochondrial ROS expression probed, respectively, by CM-H2DCFH and MitoSOXRed were imaged with fluorescent microscope and quantified by flow cytometry. (g-h) Protein carbonylation was determined using OxyBlot method. . CT, control cybrid; WJ, WJMSC; MF, MERRF cybrid; MF+WJ, MERRF cybrid-plus-WJMSC; WJ^CB, WJMSC pretreated with 350 nM cytochalasin B for 24 h.

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