Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are promising candidates for cell-based therapies. Human platelet lysate (hPL) represents an efficient alternative to fetal bovine serum for clinical-scale expansion of MSC. Different medium used in culture processes should maintain the biological characteristics of MSC during multiple passages. However, bone marrow MSC (BMMSC) and adipose tissue MSC (ATMSC) have not yet been directly compared with each other under hPL conditions. This study aims to conduct a direct head-to-head comparison of the biological characteristics of the two types of MSC under hPL-supplemented culture conditions for the ability to be used in regenerative medicine applications.
The BMMSC and ATMSC were cultured under hPL conditions and evaluated their biological characteristics for cell therapy: morphology, immunophenotype, colony-forming unit-fibroblast (CFU-F) efficiency, proliferation capacity, potential for mesodermal differentiation, secreted proteins, and immunomodulatory effects.
On hPL-supplemented culture conditions, BMMSC and ATMSC exhibited similar fibroblast-like morphology and expression patterns of surface markers. ATMSC had greater proliferative potential than BMMSC, while no significantly difference on colony efficiency were observed between two types of cells. However, BMMSC possessed higher capacity toward osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation compared with ATMSC, while similar adipogenic differentiation potential were observed between two types of cells. There were some differences between BMMSC and ATMSC for several secreted proteins, such as cytokine (IFN-γ), growth factors (bFGF, HGF, and IGF-1), and chemokine (SDF-1). ATMSC had more potent immunomodulatory effects than BMMSC.
ATMSC have biological advantages in the proliferative capacity, secreted proteins (bFGF, IFN-γ, and IGF-1), and immunomodulatory effects, but BMMSC in osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation potential and secreted proteins (SDF-1 and HGF), these biological advantages should be considered systematically when choosing the MSC source for specific clinical application.