Our results suggest that BM-SMPC may be useful in studying SMC differentiation and have high potential for development of cell therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular disease.

Our results suggest that hair follicles may be an easily accessible, autologous, and rich source of functional SMPC for cardiovascular tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

We investigated the potential of human hair follicle cells for multilineage differentiation and as a source of functional smooth muscle cells (SMCs). We report that human hair follicle stem cells (HFCs) isolated from individual follicles expressed surface markers that are characteristic of mesenchymal stem cells such as CD44, CD49b, CD73, CD90, and CD105 but lacked hematopoietic markers CD45 and CD34. In addition, HFCs differentiated toward adipocytes, chondrocytes, osteoblasts, or SMCs in the appropriate induction medium. Treatment with basic fibroblast growth factor increased proliferation and prevented myogenic differentiation, suggesting that basic fibroblast growth factor can be used to expand the population of undifferentiated HFCs to the large numbers needed for therapeutic applications. SMCs were isolated from HFCs using tissue-specific promoters and flow cytometry sorting. Cylindrical vascular constructs engineered with HF-SMCs showed remarkable contractility in response to receptor and nonreceptor agonists such KCl, endothelin-1, and the thromboxane mimetic, U46619, as well as superior mechanical properties compared to their counterparts with human vascular SMCs. Our results suggest that HF is a rich source of mesenchymal stem cells with great potential for myogenic differentiation providing functional SMCs for tissue regeneration and cell therapies.

Background Skin wounding is very common and may be slow to heal. Increasing evidence shows that exosomes derived from mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) dramatically enhance skin wound healing in a paracrine manner. However, the mechanism underlying this phenomenon has not yet been elucidated. Thus, the objective of the present study was to identify the signaling pathways and paracrine factors by which MSC-derived exosomes promote de novo skin tissue regeneration in response to wound healing. Methods In vitro and in vivo skin wound healing models were created by treating immortalized human keratinocytes (HaCaT) with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and excising full-thickness mouse skin, respectively. Exosomes were extracted from human umbilical cord Wharton’s jelly MSCs (hucMSC-Ex) by ultracentrifugation of cell culture supernatant. Results The hucMSC-Ex treatment significantly increased HaCaT cell proliferation and migration in a time- and dose-dependent manner, suppressed HaCaT apoptosis induced with H2O2 by inhibiting nuclear translocation of apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) and upregulating poly ADP ribose polymerase 1 (PARP-1) and poly (ADP-ribose) (PAR). The animal experiments showed that relative to hucMSCs, hucMSC-Ex attenuated full-thickness skin wounding by enhancing epidermal re-epithelialization and dermal angiogenesis. Conclusions These findings indicated that direct administration of hucMSC-Ex may effectively treat cutaneous wounding and could be of great value in clinical settings.

No abstract

The maintenance of highly proliferative capacity and full differentiation potential is a necessary step in the initiation of stem cell-based regenerative medicine. Our recent study showed that epidermal growth factor (EGF) significantly enhanced hair follicle-derived mesenchymal stem cell (HF-MSC) proliferation while maintaining the multilineage differentiation potentials. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Herein, we investigated the role of EGF in HF-MSC proliferation. HF-MSCs were isolated and cultured with or without EGF. Immunofluorescence staining, flow cytometry, cytochemistry, and western blotting were used to assess proliferation, cell signaling pathways related to the EGF receptor (EGFR), and cell cycle progression. HF-MSCs exhibited surface markers of mesenchymal stem cells and displayed trilineage differentiation potentials toward adipocytes, chondrocytes, and osteoblasts. EGF significantly increased HF-MSC proliferation as well as EGFR, ERK1/2, and AKT phosphorylation (p-EGFR, p-ERK1/2, and p-AKT) in a time- and dose-dependent manner, but not STAT3 phosphorylation. EGFR inhibitor (AG1478), PI3K-AKT inhibitor (LY294002), ERK inhibitor (U0126), and STAT3 inhibitor (STA-21) significantly blocked EGF-induced HF-MSC proliferation. Moreover, AG1478, LY294002, and U0126 significantly decreased p-EGFR, p-AKT, and p-ERK1/2 expression. EGF shifted HF-MSCs at the G1 phase to the S and G2 phase. Concomitantly, cyclinD1, phosphorylated Rb, and E2F1expression increased, while that of p16 decreased. In conclusion, EGF induces HF-MSC proliferation through the EGFR/ERK and AKT pathways, but not through STAT-3. The G1/S transition was stimulated by upregulation of cyclinD1 and inhibition of p16 expression.

Understanding the effects of organismal ageing on BM-SMCs and the properties of the resulting vascular constructs may lead to innovative ways to facilitate application of these cells in the treatment of cardiovascular disease which is especially prevalent in the elderly.

Cell therapy and cell-based tissue engineering is becoming increasingly important in regenerative medicine. Stem cells that are characterized by self-renewal, high proliferation and multiple differentiation potentials have attracted attention in cell-based regenerative medicine. Maintaining the aforementioned characteristics of stem cells is the first key step in cell-based regenerative medicine. Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is a well-known growth factor that efficiently maintains the self-renewal, high proliferation and multilineage differentiation potential of stem cells. Whether or not other growth factors, such as acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) have similar effects has yet to be fully elucidated. Human hair follicle-derived mesenchymal stem cells (HF-MSCs) were obtained by organ culture. They exhibited surface markers of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells as shown by positive staining for CD44, CD73, CD90 and CD105, and they also displayed trilineage differentiation potentials into adipocytes, chondrocytes and osteoblasts by cytochemistry and qRT-PCR. Flow cytometry analysis showed that up to 70% of HF-MSCs cultured in the presence of aFGF, bFGF or EGF stayed at the G0/G1 phase. Proliferation analysis showed that both bFGF and EGF at as low as 1 ng/ml and aFGF at above 5 ng/ml levels significantly increased the proliferation of HF-MSCs by cell counting. Consistent with proliferation analysis, immunofluorescence staining showed that more than 95% of HF-MSCs cultured in the presence of aFGF, bFGF and EGF were positively stained for proliferating cell nuclear antigen. HF-MSCs cultured in the presence of aFGF, bFGF or EGF retained marked trilineage differentiation potentials. By contrast, HF-MSCs cultured in the absence of bFGF, aFGF and EGF lost multipotency.