Exosomes derived from menstrual blood stromal cells ameliorated premature ovarian insufficiency and granulosa cell apoptosis by regulating SMAD3/AKT/MDM2/P53 pathway via delivery of thrombospondin-1.

Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) is clinically irreversible and seriously damages female fertility. We previously demonstrated that menstrual blood stromal cells (MenSCs)-derived exosomes (EXOs) effectively improved ovarian functions in the POI rat model. In this study, we investigated whether TSP1 is the key component in EXOs to ameliorate ovarian functions and further explored the molecular mechanism of EXOs in improving granulosa cell (GCs) activities. Our results demonstrated that knockdown TSP1 significantly debilitated the therapeutic effect of EXOs on estrous cyclicity, ovarian morphology, follicle numbers and pregnancy outcomes in 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD) induced POI rat model. In addition, EXOs treatment significantly promoted the activities and inhibited the apoptosis of VCD induced granulosa cells in vitro. Moreover, EXOs stimulation markedly activated the phosphorylation of SMAD3(Ser425) and AKT(Ser473), up-regulated the expressions of BCL2 and MDM2 as well as down-regulated the expressions of CASPASE3, CASPASE8, P53 and BAX. All these effects were supressed by SIS3, a inhibitor of TGF1/SMAD3. Our study revealed the key role of TSP1 in EXOs in improving POI pathology, restoring ovarian functions and GCs activities, andprovided a promising basis for EXOs in the treatment of ovarian dysfunction.