Proteome analysis of human Wharton's jelly cells during in vitro expansion

Stefania Angelucci,Marilisa Sulpizio,Sebastiano Miscia,Paola Lanuti,Fabrizio Di Giuseppe,Giuseppe Sabatino,Marco Marchisio,Carmine Di Ilio,Enrica Eleuterio,Laura Pierdomenico

doi:10.1186/1477-5956-8-18

Abstract

BackgroundThe human umbilical cord contains mucoid connective tissue and fibroblast-like cells. These cells named Wharton's jelly cells, (WJCs) display properties similar to mesenchymal stem cells therefore representing a rich source of primitive cells to be potentially used in regenerative medicine.ResultsTo better understand their self-renewal and potential in vitro expansion capacity, a reference 2D map was constructed as a proteomic data set. 158 unique proteins were identified. More than 30% of these proteins belong to cytoskeleton compartment. We also found that several proteins including Shootin1, Adenylate kinase 5 isoenzyme and Plasminogen activator-inhibitor 2 are no longer expressed after the 2nd passage of in vitro replication. This indicates that the proliferative potency of these cells is reduced after the initial stage of in vitro growing. At the end of cellular culturing, new synthesized proteins, including, ERO1-like protein alpha, Aspartyl-tRNA synthetase and Prolyl-4-hydroxylase were identified. It is suggested that these new synthesized proteins are involved in the impairment of cellular surviving during replication and differentiation time.ConclusionsOur work represents an essential step towards gaining knowledge of the molecular properties of WJCs so as to better understand their possible use in the field of cell therapy and regenerative medicine.

Highlights

The human umbilical cord contains mucoid connective tissue and fibroblast-like cells
mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have a great appeal for tissue engineering and therapeutic applications because of their high in vitro expansion potential, self renewal capacity and multipotentiality [3,4,5]
With the consent of the parents, fresh human umbilical cords were obtained from full-term births, aseptically stored in sterile saline and processed within 6 hours from partum to obtain the umbilical cord matrix mesenchymal stem cells

Summary

Introduction

The human umbilical cord contains mucoid connective tissue and fibroblast-like cells These cells named Wharton's jelly cells, (WJCs) display properties similar to mesenchymal stem cells representing a rich source of primitive cells to be potentially used in regenerative medicine. In the umbilical cord two arteries and one vein, surrounded by mucoid connective tissue, called Wharton's jelly are present (figure 1). It contains fibroblast-like cells (WJCs), which show properties similar to the MSCs and may represent a rich source of primitive cells [10,11]. Like bone marrow stromal cells, WJCs are plastic adherent, positively stained for markers of the mesenchymal cells and negatively stained for markers of the hematopoietic lineage [10,11,12,13,14]

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