Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, University of Bologna, via Tolara di Sopra 50, 40064, Ozzano Emilia, BO, Italy.
Health Science and Technologies Interdepartmental Center for Industrial Research (HST-ICIR), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
BMC Vet Res. 2019 Aug 2;15(1):277. doi: 10.1186/s12917-019-2023-5.
Little is known about the differences among adult and foetal equine mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), and no data exist about their comparative ultrastructural morphology. The aim of this study was to describe and compare characteristics, immune properties, and ultrastructural morphology of equine adult (bone marrow: BM, and adipose tissue: AT) and foetal adnexa derived (umbilical cord blood: UCB, and Wharton's jelly: WJ) MSCs.
No differences were observed in proliferation during the first 3 passages. While migration ability was similar among cells, foetal MSCs showed a higher adhesion ability, forming smaller spheroids after hanging drop culture (P < 0.05). All MSCs differentiated toward adipogenic, chondrogenic and osteogenic lineages, only tenogenic differentiation was less evident for WJ-MSCs. Data obtained by PCR confirmed MHC1 expression and lack of MHC2 expression in all four cell types. Foetal adnexa MSCs were positive for genes specific for anti-inflammatory and angiogenic factors (IL6, IL8, ILβ1) and WJ-MSCs were the only positive for OCT4 pluripotency gene. At immunofluorescence all cells expressed typical mesenchymal markers (α-SMA, N-cadherin), except for BM-MSCs, which did not express N-cadherin. By transmission electron microscopy, it was observed that WJ-MSCs had a higher (P < 0.05) number of microvesicles compared to adult MSCs, and UCB-MSCs showed more microvesicles than BM-MSCs (P < 0.05). AT-MSCs had a lower number of mitochondria than WJ-MSCs (P < 0.05), and mitochondrial area was higher for WJ-MSCs compared to UCB and AT-MSCs (P < 0.05).
Results demonstrate that MSCs from adult and foetal tissues have different characteristics, and foetal MSCs, particularly WJ derived ones, seem to have some charactestics that warrant further investigation into potential advantages for clinical application.
关于成年和胎儿马间充质干细胞（MSCs）之间的差异知之甚少，也没有关于它们比较超微结构形态的资料。本研究旨在描述和比较马成年（骨髓：BM 和脂肪组织：AT）和胎儿附属物（脐带血：UCB 和沃顿胶：WJ）来源的 MSC 的特征、免疫特性和超微结构形态。
在前 3 个传代中，增殖没有差异。虽然细胞的迁移能力相似，但胎儿 MSC 表现出更高的黏附能力，在悬滴培养后形成更小的球体（P<0.05）。所有 MSC 均向成脂、成软骨和成骨谱系分化，只有 WJ-MSC 的肌腱分化不太明显。PCR 数据证实，四种细胞类型均表达 MHC1，缺乏 MHC2。胎儿附属物 MSC 对抗炎和血管生成因子（IL6、IL8、ILβ1）的特异性基因呈阳性，而只有 WJ-MSC 对多能性基因 OCT4 呈阳性。在免疫荧光中，所有细胞均表达典型的间充质标志物（α-SMA、N-钙黏蛋白），除了 BM-MSC 不表达 N-钙黏蛋白。通过透射电子显微镜观察到，WJ-MSC 比成年 MSC 具有更高数量的微泡（P<0.05），而 UCB-MSC 比 BM-MSC 具有更多的微泡（P<0.05）。AT-MSC 的线粒体数量比 WJ-MSC 少（P<0.05），而 WJ-MSC 的线粒体面积比 UCB 和 AT-MSC 大（P<0.05）。
结果表明，来自成年和胎儿组织的 MSC 具有不同的特征，胎儿 MSC，特别是来源于 WJ 的 MSC，似乎具有一些特征，值得进一步研究其在临床应用中的潜在优势。
