Stem Cells from a Female Rat Model of Type 2 Diabetes/Obesity and Stress Urinary Incontinence Are Damaged by In Vitro Exposure to its Dyslipidemic Serum, Predicting Inadequate Repair Capacity In Vivo

Female stress urinary incontinence (FSUI) is prevalent in women with type 2 diabetes/obesity (T2D/O), and treatment is not optimal. Autograph stem cell therapy surprisingly has poor efficacy. In the male rat model of T2D/O, it was demonstrated that epigenetic changes, triggered by long-term exposure to the dyslipidemic milieu, led to abnormal global transcriptional signatures (GTS) of genes and microRNAs (miR), and impaired the repair capacity of muscle-derived stem cells (MDSC). This was mimicked in vitro by treatment of MDSC with dyslipidemic serum or lipid factors. The current study aimed to predict whether these changes also occur in stem cells from female 12 weeks old T2D/O rats, a model of FSUI. MDSCs from T2D/O (ZF4-SC) and normal female rats (ZL4-SC) were treated in vitro with either dyslipidemic serum (ZFS) from late T2D/O 24 weeks old female Zucker fatty (ZF) rats, or normal serum (ZLS) from 24 weeks old female Zucker lean (ZL) rats, for 4 days and subjected to assays for fat deposition, apoptosis, scratch closing, myostatin, interleukin-6, and miR-GTS. The dyslipidemic ZFS affected both female stem cells more severely than in the male MDSC, with some gender-specific differences in miR-GTS. The changes in miR-GTS and myostatin/interleukin-6 balance may predict in vivo noxious effects of the T2D/O milieu that might impair autograft stem cell (SC) therapy for FSUI, but this requires future studies.