Effects of adipose drived stem cells on ovary damage induced by high fructose corn syrup diet of rats

Purpose: Consumption of high sugar diet becoming a major health problem among society recently. Especially consumption of foods using cheap sweetners such as corn syrup is leading to diseases like obesity and diabetes which relates to reproduction functions. Stem cells have taken the form of treatment to use in regenerative medicine and have started to be studied experimentally for many different diseases. Aim of this study is to investigate the effects of Adipose Drived Stem cells (ADSCs) on the healing period of rat ovary damaged with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) diet. Materials and Methods: Wistar female rats were used in this study. Rats divided into 6 groups with 4 animals in each group. Group 1: Control group; Group 2: HFCS group; Group 3: STZ group; Group 4: Sham group; Group 5: HFCS + ADSC group; Group 6: STZ + ADSC group. Except the control group and STZ group all other three groups fed with HFCS containing drinking water. ADSCs injected weekly in 1x106/ml doses intraperitoneally to ADSC treated groups. Equal amounts of cell culture media was injected into the sham group. The weights of the animals were measured before and after the experiment. Fasting blood glucose (FBG) test were measured before the experiment and once in 4 weeks. Ovaries of all animals collected at the end of the experiment and used to histological and immunohistochemical examination. In terms of oxidative stress in the ovary, indirect immunohistochemical staining is applied using the primary antibodies with eNOS, iNOS for oxidative stress, VEGF for vascularization and TUNEL staining is applied for apoptosis. Statistical analysis was performed by ANOVA test. Results: In our study, body weights of HFCS and STZ treated rats are found to decrease significantly (p <0.001) compared to the control group. HFCS treated rats had more FBG level which is significantly (p <0.001) higher than that of control group. Body weights of rats in HFCS + ADSC group show no difference (p >0.05) compared to not ADSC treated HFSC group but FBG levels were significantly (p <0.001) dicreased after ADSC application. In STZ treated group FBG levels also significantly (p <0.001) decreased with ADSC application. In histological examinations of ovary sections it was shown that reduced follical numbers were found in HFCS and STZ treated groups as well as a congestion in the stroma. Immunohistochemical staining showed increased eNOS, iNOS expression in HFCS and STZ treated groups which indicates increased oxidative stress, VEGF expression is also increaced. We observed that these increased expressions are more significant (p<0.001) in HFCS group. In TUNEL immunohistochemical staining it turns out that significantly higher cell death occured in STZ treated group and the pathological changes are deceased with the ADSC treatment. Conclusion: It showed that HFCS consumption leads to hyperglycemia as well as pathological disoders in ovarian tissues in rats. Formation of these pathological and metabolic disoders may related to the increased free radicals and followed cell death. ADSC application to HFCS and STZ treated rats improved the metabolic and pathological disoders by reducing oxidative stress and apoptosis as well as decreasing increaced vascularization.