Orofacial Development and Regeneration, Institute of Oral Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Centre of Dental Medicine, University of Zurich, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Oct 16;25(20):11105. doi: 10.3390/ijms252011105.
Bone marrow and teeth contain mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) that could be used for cell-based regenerative therapies. MSCs from these two tissues represent heterogeneous cell populations with varying degrees of lineage commitment. Although human bone marrow stem cells (hBMSCs) and human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) have been extensively studied, it is not yet fully defined if their adipogenic potential differs. Therefore, in this study, we compared the in vitro adipogenic differentiation potential of hDPSCs and hBMSCs. Both cell populations were cultured in adipogenic differentiation media, followed by specific lipid droplet staining to visualise cytodifferentiation. The in vitro differentiation assays were complemented with the expression of specific genes for adipogenesis and osteogenesis-dentinogenesis, as well as for genes involved in the Wnt and Notch signalling pathways. Our findings showed that hBMSCs formed adipocytes containing numerous and large lipid vesicles. In contrast to hBMSCs, hDPSCs did not acquire the typical adipocyte morphology and formed fewer lipid droplets of small size. Regarding the gene expression, cultured hBMSCs upregulated the expression of adipogenic-specific genes (e.g., , , ). Furthermore, in these cells most Wnt pathway genes were downregulated, while the expression of NOTCH pathway genes (e.g., , , , , ) was upregulated. hDPSCs retained their osteogenic/dentinogenic molecular profile (e.g., , , ) and upregulated the WNT-specific genes but not the NOTCH pathway genes. Taken together, our in vitro findings demonstrate that hDPSCs are not entirely committed to the adipogenic fate, in contrast to the hBMSCs, which are more effective to fully differentiate into adipocytes.
骨髓和牙齿中含有间充质干细胞（MSCs），可用于基于细胞的再生治疗。这两种组织中的 MSCs 代表具有不同程度谱系分化能力的异质细胞群体。尽管已经广泛研究了人骨髓基质细胞（hBMSCs）和人牙髓干细胞（hDPSCs），但它们的成脂潜能是否不同仍未完全确定。因此，在这项研究中，我们比较了 hDPSCs 和 hBMSCs 的体外成脂分化潜能。将两种细胞群体分别培养在成脂分化培养基中，然后用特异性脂滴染色来观察细胞分化。体外分化实验还补充了成脂和成骨-牙本质形成的特定基因以及涉及 Wnt 和 Notch 信号通路的基因的表达。我们的研究结果表明，hBMSCs 形成含有大量小脂滴的脂肪细胞。与 hBMSCs 相反，hDPSCs 没有获得典型的脂肪细胞形态，形成的脂滴数量较少且体积较小。就基因表达而言，培养的 hBMSCs 上调了脂肪形成特异性基因（例如，、、）的表达。此外，在这些细胞中，大多数 Wnt 通路基因被下调，而 Notch 通路基因（例如、、、、）的表达被上调。hDPSCs 保留了其成骨/牙本质形成的分子特征（例如、、），并上调了 WNT 特异性基因，但未上调 Notch 通路基因。总之，我们的体外研究结果表明，与 hBMSCs 相比，hDPSCs 不完全向成脂命运分化，hBMSCs 更有效地完全分化为脂肪细胞。
