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Several cell-based therapies for peripheral arterial disease (PAD) have been studied in multiple clinical trials; however, the outcome of this treatment remains controversial. The aim of this study was to perform a meta-analysis of the clinical trials on stem cell-based therapy after PAD. We searched for clinical trials that investigated the effect of stem cell-based therapy on patients with PAD and were published between January 2000 and October 2014. The outcomes of interest comprised all-cause mortality, amputation rate, ulcer healing, and ankle-brachial index (ABI). In addition, pooled odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to assess the safety and efficacy of the stem cell-based therapies for PAD. Thirteen studies were retrieved from 261 citations for the analysis, and in total, 527 patients (mean age: 64.2 years; median follow up: 6 months) were included in the analysis. After synthesizing data, the meta-analysis showed significant improvement in the amputation rate (OR=0.33, 95%CI=0.22-0.51; P

Snail, a potent repressor of E-cadherin expression, plays a key role in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in epithelial cancer. Recently, EMT and stemness programs are found linked together. In the current study, the expression of Snail and its contribution to cancer stem cell (CSC) marker expression, invasiveness, self-renewal, clonogenicity, and tumorigenicity of pancreatic cancer cells were studied. Our results showed that Snail was highly expressed in CSC(high) cell line Panc-1. Stable, short hairpin RNA (shRNA)-mediated Snail knockdown decreased invasion in Panc-1 cells, in line with increased E-cadherin expression and its translocation from the nucleus to the membrane. Snail silencing in Panc-1 also inhibited CSC marker ALDH expression, together with decreased sphere and colony forming capacity, which was highly consistent with the expression of stem cell associated transcription factors like Sox2 and Oct4. In mouse xenograft models, knockdown of Snail led to a reduced number of tumor-bearing mice and a reduced average size of tumors, which had a stronger membrane staining of E-cadherin and lighter staining of Oct4. Collectively, these findings implicate Snail is required for the maintenance of stem cell-like phenotype in pancreatic cancer, and inhibition of Snail could be an efficient strategy to treat pancreatic cancer by targeting CSCs.

Human adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ADSCs) are an attractive multipotent stem cell source with therapeutic applicability across diverse fields for the repair and regeneration of acute and chronically damaged tissues. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in ADSC for tissue engineering applications. However, the mechanisms underlying the regulation of ADSC proliferation are not fully understood. Here we show that 47 transcripts are up-regulated while 23 are down-regulated in ADSC compared to terminally differentiated cells based on global mRNA profiling and microRNA profiling. Among the up-regulated genes, the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is fine-tuned by miR-199a-5p. Further investigation indicates that VEGF accelerates ADSC proliferation whereas the multipotency of ADSC remains stable in terms of adipogenic, chondrogenic and osteogenic potentials after VEGF treatment, suggesting that VEGF may serve as an excellent supplement for accelerating ADSC proliferation during in vitro expansion.