title: Comparative study of in vitro expansion of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells.
abstract: Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMD-MSCs) are of great interest for tissue engineering, but require expansion before they can be used for therapeutic applications. We compared three different culture techniques for their potential for large scale expansion of rat BMD-MSCs, i.e. monolayer cultures, stirred suspension cultures and pour-off cultures, and found that pour-off cultures supported the biggest expansion in BMD-MSCs as measured by the fibroblastic-colony forming unit assay (CFU-f). BMD-MSCs expanded in stirred suspension cultures stopped proliferating altogether and, although monolayer cultures allowed for expansion of BMD-MSCs, they favoured a differentiated phenotype over uncommitted MSCs. Only BMD-MSCs expanded in pour-off cultures were able to differentiate into both osteoblastic and adipocytic lineages and maintain CFU-f numbers. These data suggest that pour-off cultures are a viable method of BMD-MSC expansion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Medical School, Institute for Cancer Studies, The University of Sheffield, Beech Hill Road, Sheffield, S10 2RX, UK. stefan.peter@sheffield.ac.uk
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peter
authors.forename: Andy M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Scutt
authors.forename: Phillip C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Catherine A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Biggs
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D001853:Bone Marrow; D002452:Cell Count; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D003114:Colony-Forming Units Assay; D059630:Mesenchymal Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats