Università degli Studi di Milano, Department of Veterinary Clinical Science, Lodi, Italy.
J Biol Regul Homeost Agents. 2011 Apr-Jun;25(2 Suppl):S75-84.
Mesenchymal stem cells have been recently investigated for their potential use in regenerative medicine. Population of adult stem cells were recently identified in human and lab animal tendons, but no detailed investigations have been made in the equine species. The aim of our study is to identify a progenitor cell population from tendon tissue (TSPCs) in the horse superficial digital flexor tendon that are able to be highly clonogenic, to grow fast and to differentiate in different induced cell lineages as well as bone marrow derived progenitor cells (BM-MSCs). The hypothesis that TSPCs possess a mesenchymal stem cell behavior opens a new prospective for tendon regenerative medicine approaches. TSPCs were expanded more rapidly and showed higher plating efficiency when compared with BM-MSCs. Both cell lines expressed identical stem cell markers in vitro and they were able to differentiate towards osteogenic and adipogenic lineages as demonstrated with cytochemical staining and mRNA gene expression. TSPCs showed a positive but limited chondrogenic differentiation compared with BM-MSCs as demonstrated by histological and biochemical analyses. According to our results, equine TSPCs have high clonogenic properties and proliferating potential, they express stem cell markers and have the capability to be multipotent as well as BM-MSCs. These findings suggest that TSPCs may represent a good model for stem cell biology and could be useful for future tendon regenerative medicine investigations.
间充质干细胞最近因其在再生医学中的潜在应用而受到研究。成人干细胞群体最近在人和实验动物的肌腱中被鉴定出来，但在马属动物中尚未进行详细的研究。我们的研究目的是从马的浅层指屈肌腱组织中鉴定出能够具有高克隆形成能力、快速生长并分化为不同诱导细胞谱系以及骨髓来源祖细胞（BM-MSCs）的祖细胞群体。TSPCs 具有间充质干细胞行为的假设为肌腱再生医学方法开辟了新的前景。与 BM-MSCs 相比，TSPCs 的扩增速度更快，贴壁效率更高。两种细胞系在体外均表达相同的干细胞标志物，并且能够向成骨和成脂谱系分化，如细胞化学染色和 mRNA 基因表达所示。与 BM-MSCs 相比，TSPCs 的软骨分化呈阳性但有限，如组织学和生化分析所示。根据我们的结果，马 TSPCs 具有高克隆形成特性和增殖潜力，它们表达干细胞标志物，并且具有多能性，与 BM-MSCs 一样。这些发现表明，TSPCs 可能代表干细胞生物学的良好模型，并可用于未来的肌腱再生医学研究。
