Human umbilical cord serum as an alternative to fetal bovine serum for in vitro expansion of umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cells.

In the use of bovine fetal serum (FBS) there is concern about the possibility of disease transmission from animal to human. Therefore, it seems necessary to create culture conditions free of animal serum, especially in cell therapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of replacing human umbilical cord serum (hUCS) with FBS for in vitro expansion of umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (UC-MSCs). Here, UC-MSCs were cultured for five days in media supplemented either by hUCS or commercial FBS (Gibco and HyClone) to compare their viability, proliferation, morphology, Immunophenotype and differentiation potential. Our data shows that use of 5% and/or 10% hUCS, resulted in a tenfold increase in the number of MSCs; While in the presence of commercial FBS, this figure reached a maximum of five times. Notably, the rate of cell proliferation in the group containing 2% hUCS was the same as the groups containing 10% commercial FBS. Furthermore, there was no significant difference between groups in terms of viability, surface markers, and multilineage differentiation potential. These results demonstrated that hUCS can efficiently replace FBS for the routine culture of MSCs and can be used ideally in manufacturing process of UC-MSCs in cell therapy industry.