Erythropoietin improves brain development in short-term hypoxia in rat embryo cultures

Hypoxia pretreatment and EPO-modification enhance the protective effects of MSC on neuron-like PC12 cells in a similar way

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) based cell transplantation therapy is proved to be an attractive strategy with great potential for improvement of hypoxia induced neural damage. In the present study, MSCs were co-culture with PC12 to investigate its protective effects against hypoxia pretreatment, and the Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release assay, MTT and Anexin V staining were performed to analysis the cellular damage or apoptotic. RT-PCR and Western blotting were further used to investigate the underlying mechanism. The results indicate that hypoxia treatment results in the decrease of PC12 cell viability, yet co-culture with MSC could protect the PC12 from hypoxia induced damage. Hypoxia pre-activated or EPO transduced MSC with up-regulated erythropoietin (EPO) expression could further enhance MSC's protective effect against hypoxia induced cell damage, which was associated with high level of anti-apoptotic p-Akt and ration Bcl-2/Bax, and decreased Caspase 3 in PC12. Taken together, these data suggests high levels of MSC-mediated cyto-protection is closely tied to high gene expression levels of EPO. The up-regulation of EPO for enhanced MSC-mediated cyto-protection may has great potential for the MSC cellular therapy of neural or neuronal injuries induced by hypoxia.

Erythropoietin and Nonhematopoietic Effects

Erythropoietin (EPO) is the main regulator of red blood cell production. Since the 1990s, EPO has been used for the treatment of anemia associated with end-stage renal failure and chemotherapy. The erythropoietin receptors were found on other organs such as the brain, spinal cord, heart and skin. In addition, it has been shown that many tissues produce and locally release EPO in response to hypoxic, biochemical and physical stress. In cellular, animal and clinical studies, EPO protects tissues from ischemia and reperfusion injury, has antiapoptotic effects and improves regeneration after injury. In this article, we mainly review the nonhematopoietic effects and new possible clinical indications for EPO.

Post-natal hypoxic activity of the central respiratory command is improved in transgenic mice overexpressing Epo in the brain

Previous studies indicated that erythropoietin modulates central respiratory command in mice. Specifically, a one-hour incubation of the brainstems with erythropoietin attenuates hypoxia-induced central respiratory depression. Here, using transgenic mice constitutively overexpressing erythropoietin specifically in the brain (Tg21), we investigated the effect of chronic erythropoietin stimulation on central respiratory command activity during post-natal development. In vitro brainstem-spinal cord preparations from mice at 0 (P0) or 3 days of age (P3) were used to record the fictive inspiratory activity from the C4 ventral root. Our results show that erythropoietin already stimulates the hypoxic burst frequency at P0, and at P3, erythropoietin effectively stimulates the hypoxic burst frequency and amplitude. Because the maturation of the central respiratory command in mice is characterized by a decrease in the burst frequency with age, our results also suggest that erythropoietin accelerates the maturation of the newborn respiratory network and its response to hypoxia.