Ethics statement
The animal protocol was reviewed and approved by the Experimental Animal Ethics Committee of Minhang Hospital, Fudan University.
Experimental animals
Male SD rats (250 ± 20 g) were provided by Minhang Hospital and housed with humidity 50-60% and light/dark cycle 12/12h at 20-23℃.
Collection and identification of hucMSCs
HucMSCs (7530, ScienCell Research Laboratories, CA, USA) were subcultured to passage 4 in the medium (7501, ScienCell Research Laboratories).
The typical surface markers of hucMSCs were tested by flow cytometry. HucMSCs were resuspended in bovine serum albumin and combined with CD29 (1:100, 553715, BD Biosciences, CA, USA), CD34 (1:200, ab81289, Abcam, MA, USA), CD73 (1:50, 550257, BD Biosciences) and CD90 (1:100, 555595, BD Biosciences), respectively. HucMSCs were detected by flow cytometry after resuspending with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS).
HucMSCs were placed in osteogenic medium (0.1 mM dexamethasone, 10 mM β-glycerophosphate and 50 mM ascorbyl phosphate) or adipogenic medium (Cyagen Biosciences, CA, USA). Two weeks later, the osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation potentials were evaluated by Alizarin Red and Oil Red O staining [16, 17].
Cell transfection
miR-342-3p negative control (NC), miR-342-3p agomir and miR-342-3p antagomir (Sangon, Shanghai, China) were utilized to transfect hucMSCs using Lipofectamine 3000 (Invitrogen, CA, USA) [18].
Isolation and identification of hucMSCs-exos
The supernatant of hucMSCs (70-80% confluence) was centrifuged at 300 × g, 2000 × g, and 10000 × g in sequence. The final supernatant was ultracentrifuged at 100000 × g, and then the pellet was then ultracentrifuged at 100000 × g. The pellet was resuspended in PBS, passed through a 0.22 μm filter and quantified by bicinchoninic acid method.
The extracted pellet was identified by transmission electron microscope (TEM, JEM-2000FX, JEOL, Japan) to observe morphology, by nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA, NS300, MIL, Malvern, UK) to measure size and concentration, and by Western blot to analyze the surface markers of exos CD9 (1:1000, ab92762), CD63 (1:1000, ab59479), TSG101 (1:1000, ab125011) and Alix (1:1000, ab117600, all from Abcam) [19].
Construction of DVT model
SD rats were anesthetized by inhaling 2% isoflurane and kept in a supine position. A midline abdominal incision was made, and then the inferior vena cava (IVC) was sutured with a single 7-0 suture where it passed through the left renal vein. All side branches were interrupted. Finally, the incision was sutured. All rats were euthanized after 14 d, and the thrombotic IVC was collected.
One hour before IVC suture, rats (n = 10/group) were injected with hucMSCs-exos at 300 μg into the femoral vein in situ and related plasmids at 10 nmol. The model rats were given the same amount of normal saline, and the normal rats were used as the control. The hucMSCs-exos included untreated hucMSCs-exos, or those transfected with miR-342-3p NC, miR-342-3p agomir and miR-342-3p agomir. The plasmids included overexpression (oe)-NC and oe-EDNRA (Sangon) [20, 21].
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
The thrombotic IVC was homogenized, and the supernatant was amassed. Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α, 70-EK282/3-96), interleukin (IL)-6 (70-EK206/3-96) and IL-1β (70-EK201B/3-96) kits (Multi Sciences, Hangzhou, China) were used. The absorbance at 450 nm was read on an Epoch microplate reader (BioTek, VT, USA) [17].
Treatment of HUVECs
HucMSCs were centrifuged at 100000 g and labeled with the fluorescent dye CM-Dil (Moleculai Probes, OR, USA). HUVECs (ScienCell Research Laboratories) at 80% confluence, along with CM-DiI-labeled exos were incubated in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM). After that, HUVECs were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde, treated with 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (Vector Laboratories, CA, USA) and observed under an inverted fluorescence microscope (IX71-A12FL/PH, Olympus, Japan) [22].
After co-culture with exos containing miR-342-3p agomir, HUVECs were transfected with oe-NC or oe-EDNRA through Lipofectamine 3000 (Invitrogen), and collected 72 h later for subsequent detection.
Tube formation assay
HUVECs were seeded in Matrigel-coated 96-well plates (BD Biosciences) and incubated with exos for 12 h. High glucose DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS was used as a control. HUVECs were observed under an optical microscope (IX53, Olympus, Tokyo, Japan) and the length of tubes was measured by ImageJ software [22, 23].
Hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) staining
An incision was made on the inner thigh skin, the rat thrombus was obtained, and then the femoral vein was separated, and its length and weight were calculated. Thrombotic IVC was fixed with 10% formaldehyde and embedded in paraffin. The paraffin slices (4 μm) were dewaxed with xylene, dehydrated with gradient ethanol, stained with hematoxylin, differentiated with hydrochloric acid and ethanol, and placed in 0.5% eosin solution. Then, the slices were treated with ethanol for conventional dehydration and xylene for permeabilization, and sealed in neutral resin. The slices were observed under an inverted microscope (XSP-8CA, XTZ Optical Instrument Factory, Shanghai, China) [24, 25].
Masson staining
The paraffin-embedded thrombotic IVC slices were deparaffinized, stained with Weiger iron-hematoxylin, and differentiated with hydrochloric acid and ethanol. Next, the slices were stained with ponceaunic acid fuchsin solution and treated with 1% phosphoric acid aqueous solution. Thereafter, the slices were counter-stained with aniline blue solution, treated with 1% glacial acetic acid, dehydrated with 95% ethanol and absolute ethanol, permeabilized with xylene, and sealed with neutral resin. The slices were observed under an inverted microscope (XSP-8CA, XTZ Optical Instrument Factory) [26].
Reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR)
Total RNA was collected from tissues, cells and exos via Trizol (Invitrogen). For miRNA, cDNA was synthesized using TAQMAN MicroRNA Reverse Transcription Kit (Applied Biosystems, CA, USA), and amplified using TAQMAN Micro Assay Mix (Thermo Fisher Scientific); for EDNRA, cDNA was synthesized using a reverse transcription kit (Invitrogen), and analyzed by Sybr Premix EX TAQ II (Takara, Dalian, China). The results were standardized to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and U6, respectively. The primer sequences are shown in Table 1. The data was analyzed using the 2-ΔΔCt method [27].
Western blot assay
Total protein in tissues, cells and exos was obtained by radio-immunoprecipitation assay lysate containing protease inhibitors, separated by 10% sodium lauryl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, transferred to polyvinylidene fluoride membrane (Millipore, MA, USA) and sealed with 5% skim milk. The corresponding primary antibodies EDNRA (1:1000, ab85163) and GAPDH (1:1000, ab8245, Abcam), as well as the corresponding secondary antibody were incubated with the membrane. The enhanced chemiluminescence reagent (Beckman Coulter) was used to quantify the protein [26].
Dual luciferase reporter gene assay
On the bioinformatics website (http://www.targetscan.org), the binding sites of miR-342-3p and EDNRA was predicted. The fluorescein reporter plasmids EDNRA-WT and EDNRA-MUT were produced by QuikChange kit (Agilent Technologies, CA, USA). The constructed reporters were co-transfected with miR-342-3p-agomir or miR-342-3p-NC into HEK293T cells, and luciferase activity was assessed by a dual luciferase assay system (Promega, MI, USA) [24].
RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assay
The cell lysate collected by RIPA lysis buffer (P0013B, Beyotime, Shanghai, China). The magnetic beads were resuspended in RIP wash buffer, combined with Ago2 (1:50, ab32381, Abcam) or IgG (1:100, ab109489, Abcam). The magnetic bead-antibody complex was rinsed with RIP wash buffer, incubated with the cell lysate and treated with proteinase K. The extracted RNA was tested by RT-qPCR [20, 26, 28].
Statistical analysis
Data assessment was performed in SPSS 21.0 (IBM, NY, USA). Measurement data were expressed by mean ± standard deviation. The comparison between two groups of measurement data in normal distribution was evaluated by independent sample t test, while that among multiple groups by one-way analysis of variance, followed by Tukey's post-hoc test. Data comparison at different time points was performed by repeated measures analysis of variance, as well as Bonferroni post-hoc test. P < 0.05 meant statistically significance.