title: Neural ganglioside GD2 identifies a subpopulation of mesenchymal stem cells in umbilical cord.
abstract: In contrast to hematopoietic stem cells, there is still a lack of definitive cell markers for specific isolation and identification of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Thus a homogenous population of MSCs is only obtained after several passages, when multilineage potential or other distinctive features of very early progenitors may be already somewhat compromised. Recently a novel surface marker the neural ganglioside GD2 has been reported to distinguish MSCs from all other cells within marrow. Here, we found that MSCs derived from umbilical cord (UC-MSCs) also expressed this marker at early-passages. More importantly, UC-MSCs were the only cells within umbilical cord expressing this marker. Compared to unsorted cells, GD2(+)-sorted cells not only possessed much higher clonogenicity and proliferation capacity but also had significantly stronger multi-differentiation potentials. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that GD2(+)-sorted cells showed increased expression of SSEA-4, Oct-4, Sox-2 and Nanog, the typical markers expressed in embryonic stem cells, in comparison to unsorted or GD2-negative MSCs. Take together, our data demonstrate that the cells selected by GD2 are a subpopulation of MSCs with feature of primitive precursor cells and provide evidence that GD2 can be a cell surface marker suitable for the isolation and purification of UC-MSCs in early-passage culture.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, National Research Center for Stem Cell Engineering and Technology, Institute of Hematology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Tianjin 300020, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: WenBin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.forename: DongSheng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: WeiTing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: PengXia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: ShiHong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: ChunLan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Zhongchao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells / Q000166:cytology; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002469:Cell Separation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D005732:Gangliosides / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D059630:Mesenchymal Stem Cells / Q000145:classification / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D017350:N-Acetylgalactosaminyltransferases / Q000378:metabolism; D014470:Umbilical Cord / Q000166:cytology*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D005732:Gangliosides; C019403:ganglioside, GD2; D017350:N-Acetylgalactosaminyltransferases; C023220:(N-acetylneuraminyl)-galactosylglucosylceramide N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase