Abstract
The human omentum has been long regarded as a healing patch, used by surgeons for its ability to immunomodulate, repair and vascularise injured tissues. A major component of the omentum are mesothelial cells, which display some of the characteristics of mesenchymal stem/stromal cells. For instance, lineage tracing studies have shown that mesothelial cells give rise to adipocytes and vascular smooth muscle cells, and human and rat mesothelial cells have been shown to differentiate into osteoblast- and adipocyte-like cells in vitro, indicating that they have considerable plasticity. However, so far, long-term cultures of mesothelial cells have not been successfully established due to early senescence. Here, we demonstrate that mesothelial cells isolated from the mouse omentum could be cultured for more than 30 passages. While epithelial markers were downregulated over passages in the mesothelial cells, their mesenchymal profile remained unchanged. Early passage mesothelial cells displayed clonogenicitiy, expressed several stem cell markers, and up to passage 5 and 13, respectively, could differentiate along the adipogenic and osteogenic lineages, demonstrating stem/progenitor characteristics and differentiation potential.
Highlights
The development of regenerative medicine therapies (RMTs) has become a major research focus, with the aim to test and establish approaches that allow repair of damaged tissues and organs
We had described the culture of omentum explants from adult mice for up to 5 days where mesothelial cells (MCs) grew out from the explant to form an epithelial sheet at around d2 post seeding [32]
We found that the mRNA expression of the master control protein for adipogenesis, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) [36, 37] was significantly increased in early passage MCs under adipogenic conditions (Fig 7J)
Summary
The development of regenerative medicine therapies (RMTs) has become a major research focus, with the aim to test and establish approaches that allow repair of damaged tissues and organs. Stem or progenitor cells play prominent roles in this field based on the hypothesis that they can be utilised to contribute to regenerative or repair mechanisms by integrating into the damaged site, replacing lost cells and ameliorating tissue damage as well as loss of functionality. A promising source of RMTs comprises adult resident stem or progenitor cells, which are thought to contribute to the regulation of normal tissue homeostasis [1]. Findings by several groups have supported the notion that mesothelial cells isolated from adult rodents have regenerative potential [2,3,4,5]. Mesothelial cells constitute a PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158997 July 12, 2016
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