Speaker
Description
Introduction: In the last decade, the interest in understanding perinatal tissues, including the human umbilical cord, have exponentially increased due to the plasticity, differentiation, and immune modulatory properties of these tissues1,2. Advances in the comprehension of the biology of human umbilical cord and their cells, will contribute to establish their potential use in tissue engineering and advanced therapies. The aim of this work is to characterize the human umbilical cord and the mesenchymal stem cells found in this structure as potential cell source in tissue engineering.
Methodology: Human umbilical cords (hUCs) were obtained from full-term newborns delivered by cesarean section. Transversal sections of the hUCs were obtained, fixed in 4% formaldehyde washed, dehydrated, cleared, embedded in paraffin, and finally stained with hematoxylin and eosin (HE) for histological analysis. Histochemical and immunohistochemical analyses were carried out to evaluate the expression of key biological markers of MSC (CD105, CD90 and CD73) and extracellular matrix (ECM) components. In each sample, four regional areas of the umbilical cord were analyzed: intervascular zone (IV), perivascular (PV), subamnioblastic (SAM) and Wharton jelly zone (WH). The staining intensity and the percentage of cells showing positive signal for each marker were quantified in each sample and each zone.
Results: Our results demonstrate that MSC residing in the hUC express the typical markers of MSC CD90, CD105 and CD73, although expression varied among the four regions of the hUC. In addition, all zones were positive for collagen and proteoglycans, suggesting that these cells may play a role in remodeling the ECM of the hUC. However, regional differences were found, suggesting that cells corresponding to specific regions may be more suitable for tissue engineering purposes.
Conclusions: These results support the use of MSC derived from the hUC as cells with potential to synthetize relevant fibrillar and non-fibrillar ECM components without losing the expression of the key MSC markers. These results open the door to the use of specific cell types isolated from IV, PV, SAM or WH regions with increased potential to synthetize definite ECM molecules for the generation of bioengineered substitutes of the human skin, oral mucosa, palate, cornea and other tissues by tissue engineering.
20941834206
