Globally, severe CAD affects over a hundred million patients, and although the mortality rate has decreased, it remains one of the leading causes of death1,2. CAD has a wide clinical spectrum from myocardial infarction (MI) to ischemia with preserved viability. Most pre-clinical research focuses on MI, characterized by the presence of infarcted tissue as it is possible to study in small and large animal models. However, that model does not address patients with preserved viability and amenable to revascularization. Most patients undergoing CABG have decreased blood supply and limited function while maintaining variability in contractile reserve and viability3. Without treatment, these patients can progress to advanced heart failure and sudden death, especially during increased workload4. Among these patients, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) is an effective therapy but may not result in complete functional recovery5. Importantly, diastolic dysfunction, which is a marker for worse clinical outcomes, fails to recover after revascularization suggesting the need for novel adjuvant therapies during CABG6,7. Currently, there are no clinically available adjuvant interventions used with CABG to restore cardiomyocytes to full functional capacity. This is a major therapeutic gap given that many patients progress to advanced heart failure despite appropriate revascularization8.
An innovative porcine model of chronic myocardial ischemia that is amenable to CABG, to mimic clinical CAD experience was created9. Swine provide a good model of heart disease over other large animals as they do not have epicardial bridging collaterals so stenosis of the LAD alone results in regional ischemia10. In this study, 16-week-old female Yorkshire-Landrace pigs were used. In this model, the LAD was revascularized with off-pump CABG using the left internal mammary artery (LIMA) graft (Supplementary Table 1). Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is not possible to open the stenosis as the constrictor is a rigid device. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to assess global and regional function, coronary anatomy, and tissue viability. Cardiac MRI analysis showed diastolic function, characterized by peak filling rate (PFR) remains impaired despite CABG6. The mechanism of diastolic dysfunction likely relates to impaired mitochondrial bioenergetics and collagen formation in HIB that persist following CABG11.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) provide therapeutic signaling through exosomes to improve myocardial recovery when applied during CABG. In this swine model and parallel in vitro studies, it was shown that placement of an epicardial MSC vicryl patch during CABG recovers contractile function with increase in key mitochondrial proteins namely PGC-1α12, an important regulator of mitochondrial energy metabolism13. The in vitro model allowed us to investigate the signaling mechanism of MSCs on impaired mitochondrial function. Exosomes are secreted stable microvesicles (50-150 nm) that contain protein or nucleic acids including microRNA (miRNA)14. Recent in vitro data suggest that MSC-derived exosomes are an important signaling mechanism necessary for recovery of mitochondrial respiration.
Stem cell derived exosomes are promising adjunctive therapeutics as they are readily accessible, can be commercially produced, and lack ethical conflicts. In consideration of clinical translation, a collagen patch embedded with MSC-derived exosomes was created that can be surgically sutured to the hibernating region of myocardium. It was demonstrated that there is sustained delivery of exosomes using this patch and it provides a cell-free regenerative therapy with paracrine signaling mechanism that targets mitochondrial recovery and enhance mitochondrial biogenesis15. This procedure provides the pre-clinical model to study the impact of MSC-derived therapies to improve cardiac function by means of enhancing mitochondrial function and reducing inflammation at the time of revascularization and reverse the myocyte adaptations to chronic ischemia.
In this study, a surgical method of off-pump CABG using LIMA to LAD anastomosis to bypass the area of proximal LAD stenosis mimicking the standard treatment for patients with CAD is shown. As an adjunctive therapy with CABG, the surgical application of MSC-derived exosome embedded collagen patch on the ischemic region of the myocardium was demonstrated. This surgical model can be used to study the physiologic responses to the paracrine effect seen with use of an exosome patch as well as the molecular mechanisms of recovery.