Identification of subpopulations in mesenchymal stem cell-like cultures from human umbilical cord

摘要

BackgroundA variety of cell types can be identified in the adherent fraction of bone marrow mononuclear cells including more primitive and embryonic-like stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), lineage-committed progenitors as well as mature cells such as osteoblasts and fibroblasts. Different methods are described for the isolation of single bone marrow stem cell subpopulations – beginning from ordinary size sieving, long term cultivation under specific conditions to FACS-based approaches. Besides bone marrow-derived subpopulations, also other tissues including human umbilical cord (UC) have been recently suggested to provide a potential source for MSC. Although of clinical importance, these UC-derived MSC populations remain to be characterized. It was thus the aim of the present study to identify possible subpopulations in cultures of MSC-like cells obtained from UC. We used counterflow centrifugal elutriation (CCE) as a novel strategy to successfully address this question.