Urothelial Differentiation of Human Umbilical Cord-Derived Mesenchymal Stromal CellsIn Vitro

Shuai Wu,Xinfeng Zhao,Yingjian Zhu,Guohua Liu,Liang Zhong,Zhongliang Cheng,Jiang Zhu

doi:10.1155/2013/274640

Abstract

Human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (hUCMSCs) are the most primitive of those isolated from other post-natal tissue source. The hUCMSCs possess the capability of differentiating along multi-lineage. This study aimed to investigate whether hUCMSCs can differentiate into urothelium-like cells. The hUCMSCs were isolated from fresh human umbilical cord postpartum and expanded at least to passage 3in vitro. Subsequently, they were cultured with conditioned medium from urothelial cells (UC-CM) supplemented with 20 ng/ml exogenous epidermal growth factor (EGF). Urothelial cell specific marker uroplakin II (UPII) and cytokeratins were evaluated by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunofluorescence technology. During culture, hUCMSCs started to express UPII and cytokeratins weakly at 7 days and were significantly up-regulated at 2 weeks post-induction. Additionally, morphology of hUCMSCs changed from spindle-shape to a polygonal epithelial-shape similar to that of urothelial cells after 7 days. The study results indicated that hUCMSCs can differentiate into urothelium-like cells in a defined micro-environmentin vitroconstituted by UC-CM and exogenous EGF.

Highlights

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have immense therapeutic potential due to their capacity of selfrenewal and their ability to differentiate into multiple cell or tissue types
After 14 days of induction culture, cells were changed from spindle-shape to a polygonal epithelium-shape; similar to that of urothelial cells by morphologic observation when cultured with umbilical cord (UC)-CM + epidermal growth factor (EGF) (Fig. 1B)
After 7 days of culture, the results showed that human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (hUCMSCs) with UC-CM + EGF expressed cytokeratin18 (CK18) and uroplakin II (UPII) mRNA

Summary

Introduction

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have immense therapeutic potential due to their capacity of selfrenewal and their ability to differentiate into multiple cell or tissue types. The research findings have brought out the potential of these cells in the fields of therapeutics and tissue engineering. These cells may be successfully collected and stored for both preclinical work and banking services [4, 5]. Bone marrow aspiration is a painful procedure and the frequency and differentiation potential of MSCs decrease significantly with age [6, 7]. UC can be considered as an alternative source of MSCs. Previous studies have demonstrated that human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (hUCMSCs) are the most primitive MSCs among

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