Blanco-Elices Cristina, Chato-Astrain Jesús, González-González Alberto, Sánchez-Porras David, Carriel Víctor, Fernández-Valadés Ricardo, Sánchez-Quevedo María Del Carmen, Alaminos Miguel, Garzón Ingrid
Doctoral Programme in Biomedicine, University of Granada, E18071 Granada, Spain.
Tissue Engineering Group, Department of Histology, University of Granada, E18016 Granada, Spain.
J Pers Med. 2022 Apr 18;12(4):648. doi: 10.3390/jpm12040648.
The embryonic development of the human umbilical cord (hUC) is complex, and different regions can be identified in this structure. The aim of this work is to characterize the hUC at in situ and ex vivo levels to stablish their potential use in vascular regeneration. Human umbilical cords were obtained and histologically prepared for in the situ analysis of four hUC regions (intervascular-IV, perivascular-PV, subaminoblastic-SAM, and Wharton's jelly-WH), and primary cell cultures of mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSC) isolated from each region were obtained. The results confirmed the heterogeneity of the hUC, with the IV and PV zones tending to show the higher in situ expression of several components of the extracellular matrix (collagens, proteoglycans, and glycosaminoglycans), vimentin, and MSC markers (especially CD73), although isolation and ex vivo culture resulted in a homogeneous cell profile. Three vascular markers were positive in situ, especially vWF, followed by CD34 and CD31, and isolation and culture revealed that the region associated with the highest expression of vascular markers was IV, followed by PV. These results confirm the heterogeneity of the hUC and the need for selecting cells from specific regions of the hUC for particular applications in tissue engineering.
人类脐带（hUC）的胚胎发育过程复杂，在该结构中可识别出不同区域。本研究的目的是在原位和离体水平上对hUC进行表征，以确定其在血管再生中的潜在用途。获取人类脐带并进行组织学处理，用于对四个hUC区域（血管间-IV、血管周围-PV、亚成纤维细胞下-SAM和华通胶-WH）进行原位分析，并从每个区域分离出间充质干细胞（hUC-MSC）的原代细胞培养物。结果证实了hUC的异质性，IV区和PV区倾向于在原位显示细胞外基质的几种成分（胶原蛋白、蛋白聚糖和糖胺聚糖）、波形蛋白和MSC标志物（尤其是CD73）的较高表达，尽管分离和离体培养导致细胞轮廓均匀。三种血管标志物在原位呈阳性，尤其是血管性血友病因子（vWF），其次是CD34和CD31，分离和培养显示与血管标志物最高表达相关的区域是IV区，其次是PV区。这些结果证实了hUC的异质性，以及在组织工程的特定应用中需要从hUC的特定区域选择细胞。
