Scientific Publications by FDA Staff

Stem Cells Dev 2016 Jun 1;25(11):861-73

Identification of Predictive Gene Markers for Multipotent Stromal Cell Proliferation.

Bellayr IH, Marklein RA, Lo Surdo JL, Bauer SR, Puri RK

Multipotent stromal cells (MSCs) are known for their distinctive ability to differentiate into different cell lineages such as adipocytes, chondrocytes and osteocytes. They can be isolated from numerous tissue sources including bone marrow, adipose tissue, skeletal muscle and others. Because of their differentiation potential and their secretion of growth factors, MSCs are believed to have an inherent quality of regeneration and immune suppression, which are considered advantageous in treating multiple disorders. Since the number of MSCs derived from a tissue source is low, cellular expansion is necessary to obtain sufficient numbers for a desired cell therapy. However, after several rounds of passaging, our previous results have shown that MSCs exhibit reduced capacity for proliferation and differentiation. In this study, gene markers of MSC proliferation were identified and evaluated for their ability to predict proliferative quality. Microarray data of human bone marrow-derived MSCs were correlated with two proliferation assays. A collection of 24 genes were observed to significantly correlate with both proliferation assays (|r| > 0.70) for 8 MSC lines at multiple passages. These 24 identified genes were then confirmed using an additional set of MSCs from 8 new donors using RT-qPCR. The proliferative potential of the second set of MSCs was measured for each donor/passage for confluency fraction, fraction of EdU+ cells and population doubling time. The second set of MSCs exhibited a greater proliferative potential at passage 4 in comparison to passage 8, which was distinguishable by 15 genes; however, only 7 of the genes demonstrated significant correlation (|r| > 0.62) with MSC proliferation regardless of passage. Our results pave the way to determine the quality of an MSC population for a particular cellular therapy in lieu of an extended in vitro or in vivo assay.