Targeting regeneration capacity of stem cells to improve surgical wound healing outcomes in ovarian cancer patients.

Abstract

e17578 Background: Despite advancements in care and treatment, ovarian cancer continues to be a challenging and deadly disease. Currently, standard treatment comprises a combination of cytoreductive surgery, often followed by platinum-based chemotherapy, known to negatively affect wound healing recovery. Therefore, achieving optimal post-surgical wound healing is critical in preventing delays in treatment, which can greatly impact patient outcomes and overall survival. Adipose-derived stem cells (ASC) have been shown to be crucial in regeneration of tissue and wound closure, as well as in regulating inflammatory differentiation and proliferation processes. Thus, improving the regeneration capacity of ASCs in wounds may speed post-surgical recovery and subsequent treatments. While a number of compounds have been shown to potentiate the regeneration ability of ASCs, we hypothesize that naturally derived epigenetic compounds with anti-cancer properties (I3C and EGCG), as well as anti-inflammatory compounds (non-psychoactive cannabidiol, CBD), may have a role in increasing regeneration capacity of stem cells. Therefore, ASCs were primed with these compounds and expression of major inflammatory, anti-inflammatory, proliferation and regeneration markers was evaluated. Methods: ASCs were primed with either I3C 50uM, EGCG 10 uM, or CBD 100nM. Conditioned medium from these treatments was collected and underwent a protein array assay for detection of levels of 40 human inflammatory markers and cytokines according to the manufacturer instructions. A one-way ANOVA test and Tukey post-hoc testing analyzed intensities for each marker between the control group and each of the primed groups. Results: Our results indicate that ASCs primed with our epigenetic treatments significantly decrease expression of a multitude of inflammatory markers and cytokines. I3C primed ASCs showed significantly decreased expression of the following factors: I-309, IL-11, IL-12 p40, IL-12p70, IL-1α, IL-6sR, M-CSF, MIG, MIP-1α, MIP-1β, MIP-1δ, IL-6, MCP-1, TIMP-2. EGCG primed ASCs significantly decreased expression of IL-12p70, IL-13, IL-6sR, MIP-1α, MIP-1δ, RANTES, IL-6, IL-8, MCP-1, TIMP-2. CBD primed ASCs significantly decreased expression of IL-6. A p< .05 was used. Conclusions: Priming ASCs with EGCG, I3C and CBD significantly down-regulate expression of a number of pro-inflammatory markers known to delay and interfere with the kinetics of wound healing processes, including wound inflammation, closure and scar formation. Therefore, these results suggest that naturally derived epigenetic compounds and CBD successfully potentiated ASCs’ ability to attenuate inflammation and wound healing processes. Consequently, our findings can lead to new diet and surgical ASC protocols which could optimize cancer post-operative wound healing closure time while decreasing inflammation.