Department of Medicine - Western Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria (VIC), Australia.
Australian Institute for Musculoskeletal Science (AIMSS), Western Health, Victoria University and University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria (VIC), Australia.
Stem Cells. 2023 Nov 5;41(11):1060-1075. doi: 10.1093/stmcls/sxad064.
Circulating osteoprogenitors (COP) are a population of cells in the peripheral circulation that possess functional and phenotypical characteristics of multipotent stromal cells (MSCs). This population has a solid potential to become an abundant, accessible, and replenishable source of MSCs with multiple potential clinical applications. However, a comprehensive functional characterization of COP cells is still required to test and fully develop their use in clinical settings.
This study characterized COP cells by comparing them to bone marrow-derived MSCs (BM-MSCs) and adipose-derived MSCs (ASCs) through detailed transcriptomic and proteomic analyses.
We demonstrate that COP cells have a distinct gene and protein expression pattern with a significantly stronger immune footprint, likely owing to their hematopoietic lineage. In addition, regarding progenitor cell differentiation and proliferation pathways, COP cells have a similar expression pattern to BM-MSCs and ASCs.
COP cells are a unique but functionally similar population to BM-MSCs and ASCs, sharing their proliferation and differentiation capacity, thus presenting an accessible source of MSCs with strong potential for translational regenerative medicine strategies.
循环成骨细胞（COP）是外周循环中的一群细胞，具有多能基质细胞（MSCs）的功能和表型特征。该群体具有成为丰富、可及和可再生的 MSC 来源的巨大潜力，具有多种潜在的临床应用。然而，仍需要对 COP 细胞进行全面的功能表征，以测试和充分开发其在临床环境中的用途。
本研究通过详细的转录组学和蛋白质组学分析，将 COP 细胞与骨髓来源的 MSC（BM-MSCs）和脂肪来源的 MSC（ASCs）进行比较，对 COP 细胞进行了表征。
我们证明，COP 细胞具有独特的基因和蛋白表达模式，具有明显更强的免疫特征，可能归因于其造血谱系。此外，关于祖细胞分化和增殖途径，COP 细胞与 BM-MSCs 和 ASCs 的表达模式相似。
COP 细胞是一种独特但功能上与 BM-MSCs 和 ASCs 相似的群体，具有相似的增殖和分化能力，因此为 MSC 提供了一种可及的来源，具有强大的转化再生医学策略潜力。
