Mesenchymal Stem Cells: The younger the better !

Monday November 27th, 2006 @ 20:00:35 EST

From Category: Type

Comments: 5 (Show Comments)

London, UK

Guillot et al published in the Nov 22 edition of Stem Cells a paper entitled "Human first trimester fetal mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) express pluripotency markers, grow faster, and have longer telomeres compared to adult MSC." which suggests several advantages to regenerative uses of fetal derived mesenchymal stem cells as compared to the currently used bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells that are currently in clinical trials.

Specifically, the paper demonstrated that mesenchymal stem cells isolated from first trimester blood, liver and bone marrow possess markers associated with pluripotentiality, whereas mesenchymal stem cells isolated from adult bone marrow do not express these markers. The markers, which are also found on embryonic stem cells include Oct-4, Nanog, Rex-1, SSEA-3, SSEA-4, Tra-1-60 and Tra-1-81.

The scientists also found that mesenchymal stem cells derived from fetal sources contain higher concentrations of telomerase, and as expected, these cells undergo more replications before senescence in comparison to mesenchymal stem cells derived from adult marrow.

Searching the database at StemCellPatents.com reveals that methods exist for enhancing telomerase activity, as well as for reprogramming adult cells to an embryonic-like status by fusing with nanog overexpressing cells .

An additional idea for implementation maybe the generation of mesenchymal stem cells from embryonic stem cells, since embryonic stem cells differentiated into hematopoietic stem cells has already been performed clinically .