Changes in chondrogenesis differentiation potential of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells according to donor age

Abstract

Purpose: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are good candidates to be used in regenerative medicine due to their differentiation potential. Different studies propose these cells for the development of osteoarticular tissues. However, while MSC from bone marrow are well characterized, recent studies have evocated a decrease in proliferation and differentiation capability of these cells when donor's age increase. The aim of this work was to study the influence of donor's age on the chondrogenic differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells. Methods: Two groups of donors were analyzed (<20 years and >60 years). Proliferation and clonogenicity of cells were tested for a culture period of 10 weeks. Chondrogenic differentiation of cells was induced in pellet culture using a chondrogenic differentiation medium and TGF-β3. After that, proteoglycan production was assayed using alcian blue staining and gene expression of chondrocyte markers quantified by qRT-PCR. Results: Cells from the young donor's group an increased proliferation capacity and clonogenicity as compared with cells from old donors. In parallel, young donor group's cells were characterized by high level expression of type II collagen, aggrecan and SOX-9 genes while cells from the old donors group showed a poor chondrogenic differentiation. Conclusions: This study shows that differences on proliferation and chondrogenic differentiation exist between mesenchymal stem cells isolated from bone marrow obtained from young or old donors. This could be considered in the choise of MSC for cartilage tissue engineering.