Isolation and characterization of mesenchymal stem cells from human umbilical cord blood: Reevaluation of critical factors for successful isolation and high ability to proliferate and differentiate to chondrocytes as compared to mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow and adipose tissue

Xiaohong Zhang, Masako Hirai, Susana Cantero, Rodica Ciubotariu, Ludy Dobrila, Allen Hirsh, Koichi Igura, Hitoshi Satoh, Izuru Yokomi, Toshihide Nishimura, Satoru Yamaguchi, Kotaro Yoshimura, Pablo Rubinstein, Tsuneo A. Takahashi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

174 Scopus citations

Abstract

Human umbilical cord blood (CB) is a potential source for mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) capable of forming specific tissues, for example, bone, cartilage, or muscle. However, difficulty isolating MSC from CB (CB-MSC) has impeded their clinical application. Using more than 450 CB units donated to two public CB banks, we found that successful cell recovery fits a hyper-exponential function of time since birth with very high fidelity. Additionally, significant improvement in the isolation of CB-MSC was achieved by selecting cord blood units having a volume ≥90 ml and time ≤2 h after donor's birth. This resulted in 90% success in isolation of CB-MSC by density gradient purification and without a requirement for immunoaffinity methods as previously reported. Using MSC isolated from bone marrow (BM-MSC) and adipose tissue (AT-MSC) as reference controls, we observed that CB-MSC exhibited a higher proliferation rate and expanded to the order of the 1 × 109 cells required for cell therapies. CB-MSC showed karyotype stability after prolonged expansion. Functionally, CB-MSC could be more readily induced to differentiate into chondrocytes than could BM-MSC and AT-MSC. CB-MSC showed immunosuppressive activity equal to that of BM-MSC and AT-MSC. Collectively, our data indicate that viable CB-MSC could be obtained consistently and that CB should be reconsidered as a practical source of MSC for cell therapy and regenerative medicine using the well established CB banking system.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1206-1218
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of cellular biochemistry
Volume112
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2011

Keywords

  • Cellular proliferation
  • Chondrogenesis
  • Differentiation
  • Human umbilical cord blood
  • Mesenchymal stem cells

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biochemistry
  • Molecular Biology
  • Cell Biology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Isolation and characterization of mesenchymal stem cells from human umbilical cord blood: Reevaluation of critical factors for successful isolation and high ability to proliferate and differentiate to chondrocytes as compared to mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow and adipose tissue'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this