Comparison of Human Serum with Fetal Bovine Serum for Expansion and Differentiation of Human Synovial MSC: Potential Feasibility for Clinical Applications

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of human serum (HS) on growth and differentiation capacity of human synovium-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) in comparison to cells grown in fetal bovine serum (FBS). Human MSCs were isolated from the synovium of knee joints of three donors and the cells were cultured individually in varying concentrations of allogenic HS or FBS. Bovine MSCs were isolated from synovium and cultured in the same manner. Cell proliferation was assessed by the tetrazolium assay after passage 3. The capacity for chondrogenic and osteogenic differentiation was investigated in specific media followed by 1,9-dimethylmethylene blue assay and alcian blue staining, or by alizarin red staining, respectively. Human MSCs proliferated significantly more rapidly in the presence of HS than with equivalent levels of FBS. Chondrogenic or osteogenic differentiation occurred to nearly identical levels in HS or FBS. The results of this study indicate that HS is superior for the culture of human MSCs compared with FBS in terms of cellular expandability, without losing chondrogenic or osteogenic differentiation capacity. Coupled with the advantage in eliminating the potential risk accompanied with the use of xeno-derived materials, pooled, well-characterized HS could be a useful reagent to promote cellular expansion for clinical synovial stem cell-based therapy.

Changes in chondrogenic phenotype and gene expression profiles associated with the in vitro expansion of human synovium‐derived cells

“…34,35 An in vitro chondrogenesis assay of rat MSCs demonstrated that pellets derived from synovium had superior chondrogenic potential, 36 which they retained chondrogenic potential only after a few passages. Tateishi et al 37 demonstrated allogenic human serum is superior for culture of human synovium-derived MSCs in terms of cellular expandability without losing chondrogenic differentiation capacity, though the underlying mechanisms remained unknown.…”

Potential of Tissue-Engineered Ligament Substitutes for Ruptured ACL Replacement

“…The use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) is an attractive option as these cells have a long lifespan and are not fully differentiated, suggesting that they could be tolerated from one individual to another. The use of human serum instead of serum of animal source, seems to have a direct and a positive effect on the phenotype of human synovium-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), (Tateishi et al, 2008). The results of this study indicated that human serum (HS) is superior for the culture of human MSCs compared with fetal bovine serum (FBS) in terms of cellular expandability, without losing chondrogenic or osteogenic differentiation capacity.…”

In vitro spontaneous differentiation of human breast cancer stem cells and methods to control this process

“…FBS, which contains a pool of undetermined factors and components, caused the differentiation of BCSCs. Although FBS is an essential component of cell culture medium, it has been shown to cause differentiation of certain kinds of stem cells such as neural and embryonic, as well as germ cells (Bettiol et al, 2007;Franke et al, 2014;Hung and Young, 2006;Tateishi et al, 2008;Zahir et al, 2009). …”

“…In some recent publications, oxygen concentration has been shown to also affect drug resistance (Crowder et al, 2014;Samanta et al, 2014) and stemness of BCSCs (Mimeault and Batra, 2013;van den Beucken et al, 2014). Therefore, in this study we investigated the effects of components of media (FBS and growth factors) and oxygen concentration on spontaneous differentiation of BCSCs in vitro.…”