Figure 3

Inflammation inhibition and chondrocyte protection by UCMSCs. (A) Detection of inflammatory factors in synovial fluid. ELISAs were performed to detect IL-1β, TNF-α, and MMP13 in synovial fluid. The levels of these three factors decreased significantly in the UCMSC group compared with the model group, indicating that UCMSC transplantation inhibited the expression of key inflammatory factors in OA. Normal, normal group; Model, OA model group; Vehicle, OA model with saline injection; UCMSC, OA model with UCMSC transplantation. n = 6. (B) The effect of UCMSCs on the gene expression levels of aggrecan, Col2, and Sox9 in chondrocytes induced by IL-β1. Chondrocytes co-cultured with UCMSCs and IL-β1 were collected, and RT-PCR was used to detect gene expression levels in chondrocytes. Treatment of chondrocytes with high (1 × 10⁶ cells) and low (0.5 × 10⁶ cells) doses of UCMSCs promoted the expression of aggrecan, Col2, and Sox9 genes. Control, normal cultured rat chondrocytes; Model, rat chondrocytes pre-treated by 10 ng/mL IL-1β; UCMSC-L, rat chondrocytes pre-treated by 10 ng/mL IL-1β were co-cultured with 0.5 × 10⁶ UCMSCs; UCMSC-H, rat chondrocytes pre-treated by10ng/mL IL-1β were co-cultured with 1 × 10⁶ UCMSCs, n = 3. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 analyzed by unpaired two-tailed t-test after normality and equal variance test using Shapiro–Wilk test and ANOVA plus Brown–Forsythe test in the GraphPad software.