Mesenchymal stromal cells derived from whole human umbilical cord exhibit similar properties to those derived from Wharton's jelly and bone marrow

Abstract

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) can be isolated from several regions of human umbilical cords, including Wharton's jelly (WJ), artery, vein or cord lining. These MSC appear to be immune privileged and are promising candidates for cell therapy. However, isolating MSC from WJ, artery, vein or cord lining requires time‐consuming tissue dissection. MSC can be obtained easily via briefly digesting complete segments of the umbilical cord, likely containing heterogenous or mixed populations of MSC (MC‐MSC). MC‐MSC are generally less well characterized than WJ‐MSC, but nevertheless represent a potentially valuable population of MSC. This study aimed to further characterize MC‐MSC in comparison to WJ‐MSC and also the better‐characterized bone marrow‐derived MSC (BM‐MSC). MC‐MSC proliferated faster, with significantly faster doubling times reaching passage one 8.8 days sooner and surviving longer in culture than WJ‐MSC. All MSC retained the safety aspect of reducing telomere length with increasing passage number. MSC were also assessed for their ability to suppress T‐cell proliferation and for the production of key markers of pluripotency, embryonic stem cells, tolerogenicity (CD40, CD80, CD86 and HLA‐DR) and immunomodulation (indoleamine 2,3‐dioxygenase [IDO] and HLA‐G). The MC‐MSC population displayed all of the positive attributes of WJ‐MSC and BM‐MSC, but they were more efficient to obtain and underwent more population doublings than from WJ, suggesting that MC‐MSC are promising candidates for allogeneic cell therapy in regenerative medicine.

Allogeneic Umbilical Cord-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells as a Potential Source for Cartilage and Bone Regeneration: An In Vitro Study

“…No cell selection has been performed during the MSC extraction from cord stroma, but the adherent properties of UC-MSCs and the simple mincing of the cord fragments represented the essential steps of our cell isolation method. This choice is in line with the aforementioned evidences in literature [ 48 , 49 ], and it allows for greatly simplifying the cell harvesting without reducing the efficiency of the protocol, as recently outlined by Yoon et al [ 50 ].…”

“…Nonetheless, a recent evidence has added a further promising opportunity in the field of UC-MSCs. In recent studies, Mennan et al [ 48 ] and Hendijani et al [ 49 ] have demonstrated that a mixed cell population obtained by processing the whole umbilical cord seems to have the same differentiation potential than cells derived from single areas of the cord (Wharton's jelly, artery, vein, or cord lining). These findings might suggest the possibility to obtain optimal precursor cells without any concern about the separation of specific population, simplifying any theoretical use of the cord as a source of cells for future hypothetical widespread clinical application.…”

Exosomes Produced from 3D Cultures of MSCs by Tangential Flow Filtration Show Higher Yield and Improved Activity

“…One human umbilical cord can yield an estimated number of 10 million Wharton's jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells. 45,46 By passage 6 this would translate into 6 Â 10 13 exosomes using 3D culture and TFF. Calculating with a range of 10 9 -10 11 exosomes per mouse for preclinical small-animal studies, 9,11,13,14 one umbilical cord may provide enough exosomes to treat 600-60,000 mice.…”

Resveratrol promotes hUC-MSCs engraftment and neural repair in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

“…Besides, MSCs express key markers of immunomodulation (indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase and HLA-G) and retain the safety aspect of reducing telomere length with increasing passage number. These data strongly suggests that MSCs are unique for allogeneic cell based therapy [1]. Human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) are promising candidate for stem cell based therapy for AD because of their potential role in neural-differentiation and paracrine release of neurotrophins to support endogenous neurogenesis [2].…”