Isolation and Characterization of Neurogenic Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Human Scalp Tissue

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that adult tissues contain stem/ progenitor cells capable of not only generating mature cells of their tissue of origin but also transdifferentiating themselves into other tissue cells. Murine skin-derived precursor cells, for example, have been described as unique, nonmesenchymal-like stem cells capable of mesodermal and ectodermal neurogenic differentiation. Human-derived skin precursors are less well characterized.In this study, the isolation and characterization of adherent, mesenchymal stem cell-like cells from human scalp tissue (hSCPs) are described. hSCPs initially isolated by both medium-selection (ms-hSCPs) and single-cell (c-hSCPs) methods were cultured in medium containing epidermal growth factor and fibroblast growth factor-β. Cultured mshSCPs and c-hSCPs demonstrated a consistent growth rate, continuously replicated in cell culture, and displayed a stable phenotype indistinguishable from each other. Both hSCPs expressed surface antigen profile (CDw90, SH2, SH4, CD105, CD166, CD44, CD49d-e, and HLA class I) similar to that of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs). The growth kinetics, surface epitopes, and differentiation potential of c-hSCP cells were characterized and compared with BM-MSCs. In addition to differentiation along the osteogenic, chondrogenic, and adipogenic lineages, hSCPs can effectively differentiate into neuronal precursors evident by neurogenic gene expression of glial fibrillary acid protein, NCAM, neuron filament-M, and microtubule-associated protein 2 transcripts. Therefore, hSCPs may potentially be a better alternative of BM-MSCs for neural repairing, in addition to their other mesenchymal regenerative capacity. Our study suggests that hSCPs may provide an alternative adult stem cell resource that may be useful for regenerative tissue repair and autotransplantations. Stem Cells 2005;23:1012-1020

Age-Dependent Depletion of Human Skin-Derived Progenitor Cells

“…Several laboratories have now reported the existence of a multipotent dermal precursor cell population, the skin-derived precursor (SKP) cells (reviewed by Miller and coworkers [20,41]). Initially derived from rodents, now several groups reported isolation of SKPs from human scalp, foreskin, arm, beard and chin, in subjects ranging from fetal to old age [22,23,30,31,34,[36][37][38][39]. Transplantation of SKPs to animal models of disease has raised expectations for their potential use in human cell therapy [23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

“…Human SKPs have been previously derived from scalp [22,34,37,38], foreskin [30,36], arm [39], and the facial area [22]. However, there has been little or no phenotypic characterization of the SKPs isolated from these areas.…”

Updates on stem cells and their applications in regenerative medicine

“…The authors claimed that these cells proliferated and differentiated in culture to produce both neural and mesodermal cell types, including neurones, glia, smooth muscle and adipocytes. Although MSCs can also be isolated from skin (Shih et al, 2005), the authors suggested that, being nestin-positive, skin-derived precursors (SKPs) are a different type of stem cell (Toma et al, 2001). The majority of neural cells generated by SKPs are similar to peripheral neurones and Schwann cells.…”

Human skin-derived stem cells as a novel cell source for in vitro hepatotoxicity screening of pharmaceuticals

“…These neural crest related ASC can also be isolated from skin of the abdomen [30], breast [30], arm [31], face [32], and scalp [33] mostly upon aesthetic interventions. These cells have a high self-renewal and high multipotent differentiation capacity.…”