World journal of stem cells最新文献

Acute pancreatitis (AP) often leads to a high incidence of cardiac injury, posing significant challenges in the treatment of severe AP and contributing to increased mortality rates. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) release bioactive molecules that participate in various inflammatory diseases. Similarly, extracellular vesicles (EVs) secreted by MSCs have garnered extensive attention due to their comparable anti-inflammatory effects to MSCs and their potential to avoid risks associated with cell transplantation. Recently, the therapeutic potential of MSCs-EVs in various inflammatory diseases, including sepsis and AP, has gained increasing recognition. Although preclinical research on the utilization of MSCs-EVs in AP-induced cardiac injury is limited, several studies have demonstrated the positive effects of MSCs-EVs in regulating inflammation and immunity in sepsis-induced cardiac injury and cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, clinical studies have been conducted on the therapeutic application of MSCs-EVs for some other diseases, wherein the contents of these EVs could be deliberately modified through prior modulation of MSCs. Consequently, we hypothesize that MSCs-EVs hold promise as a potential therapy for AP-induced cardiac injury. This paper aims to discuss this topic. However, additional research is essential to comprehensively elucidate the underlying mechanisms of MSCs-EVs in treating AP-induced cardiac injury, as well as to ascertain their safety and efficacy.

Background: Zinc (Zn) is the second most abundant trace element after Fe, present in the human body. It is frequently reported in association with cell growth and proliferation, and its deficiency is considered to be a major disease contributing factor.

Aim: To determine the effect of Zn on in vitro growth and proliferation of human umbilical cord (hUC)-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs).

Methods: hUC-MSCs were isolated from human umbilical cord tissue and characterized based on immunocytochemistry, immunophenotyping, and tri-lineage differentiation. The impact of Zn on cytotoxicity and proliferation was determined by MTT and Alamar blue assay. To determine the effect of Zn on population doubling time (PDT), hUC-MSCs were cultured in media with and without Zn for several passages. An in vitro scratch assay was performed to analyze the effect of Zn on the wound healing and migration capability of hUC-MSCs. A cell adhesion assay was used to test the surface adhesiveness of hUC-MSCs. Transcriptional analysis of genes involved in the cell cycle, proliferation, migration, and self-renewal of hUC-MSCs was performed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The protein expression of Lin28, a pluripotency marker, was analyzed by immunocytochemistry.

Results: Zn at lower concentrations enhanced the rate of proliferation but at higher concentrations (> 100 µM), showed concentration dependent cytotoxicity in hUC-MSCs. hUC-MSCs treated with Zn exhibited a significantly greater healing and migration rate compared to untreated cells. Zn also increased the cell adhesion rate, and colony forming efficiency (CFE). In addition, Zn upregulated the expression of genes involved in the cell cycle (CDC20, CDK1, CCNA2, CDCA2), proliferation (transforming growth factor β1, GDF5, hypoxia-inducible factor 1α), migration (CXCR4, VCAM1, VEGF-A), and self-renewal (OCT4, SOX2, NANOG) of hUC-MSCs. Expression of Lin28 protein was significantly increased in cells treated with Zn.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that zinc enhances the proliferation rate of hUC-MSCs decreasing the PDT, and maintaining the CFE. Zn also enhances the cell adhesion, migration, and self-renewal of hUC-MSCs. These results highlight the essential role of Zn in cell growth and development.

Parkinson's disease (PD), characterized by loss of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons, is one of the most predominant neurodegenerative diseases affecting the elderly population worldwide. The concept of stem cell therapy in managing neurodegenerative diseases has evolved over the years and has recently rapidly progressed. Neural stem cells (NSCs) have a few key features, including self-renewal, proliferation, and multipotency, which make them a promising agent targeting neurodegeneration. It is generally agreed that challenges for NSC-based therapy are present at every stage of the transplantation process, including preoperative cell preparation and quality control, perioperative procedures, and postoperative graft preservation, adherence, and overall therapy success. In this review, we provided a comprehensive, careful, and critical discussion of experimental and clinical data alongside the pros and cons of NSC-based therapy in PD. Given the state-of-the-art accomplishments of stem cell therapy, gene therapy, and nanotechnology, we shed light on the perspective of complementing the advantages of each process by developing nano-stem cell therapy, which is currently a research hotspot. Although various obstacles and challenges remain, nano-stem cell therapy holds promise to cure PD, however, continuous improvement and development from the stage of laboratory experiments to the clinical application are necessary.

Background: Current evidence shows that human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) can effectively differentiate into keratinocytes (KCs), but its effect on skin burn healing has not been reported.

Aim: To observe the effects of hiPSCs-derived KCs transplantation on skin burn healing in mice and to preliminarily reveal the underlying mechanisms.

Methods: An analysis of differentially expressed genes in burn wounds based on GEO datasets GSE140926, and GSE27186 was established. A differentiation medium containing retinoic acid and bone morphogenetic protein 4 was applied to induce hiPSCs to differentiate into KCs. The expression of KCs marker proteins was detected using immunofluorescence staining. A model of a C57BL/6 mouse with deep cutaneous second-degree burn was created, and then phosphate buffered saline (PBS), hiPSCs-KCs, or hiPSCs-KCs with knockdown of COL7A1 were injected around the wound surface. The wound healing, re-epithelialization, engraftment of hiPSCs-KCs into wounds, proinflammatory factor level, and the NF-κB pathway proteins were assessed by hematoxylin-eosin staining, carboxifluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester (CFSE) fluorescence staining, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay, and Western blotting on days 3, 7, and 14 after the injection, respectively. Moreover, the effects of COL7A1 knockdown on the proliferation and migration of hiPSCs-KCs were confirmed by immunohistochemistry, EdU, Transwell, and damage repair assays.

Results: HiPSCs-KCs could express the hallmark proteins of KCs. COL7A1 was down-regulated in burn wound tissues and highly expressed in hiPSCs-KCs. Transplantation of hiPSCs-KCs into mice with burn wounds resulted in a significant decrease in wound area, an increase in wound re-epithelialization, a decrease in proinflammatory factors content, and an inhibition of NF-κB pathway activation compared to the PBS group. The in vitro assay showed that COL7A1 knockdown could rescue the inhibition of hiPSCs-KCs proliferation and migration, providing further evidence that COL7A1 speeds up burn wound healing by limiting cell proliferation and migration.

Conclusion: In deep, second-degree burn wounds, COL7A1 can promote KC proliferation and migration while also suppressing the inflammatory response.

In recent years, mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) have been considered the most effective source for regenerative medicine, especially due to released soluble paracrine bioactive components and extracellular vesicles. These factors, collectively called the secretome, play crucial roles in immunomodulation and in improving survival and regeneration capabilities of injured tissue. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the secretome released by retinal cytotypes, especially retinal pigment epithelium and Müller glia cells. The latter trophic factors represent the key to preserving morphofunctional integrity of the retina, regulating biological pathways involved in survival, function and responding to injury. Furthermore, these factors can play a pivotal role in onset and progression of retinal diseases after damage of cell secretory function. In this review, we delineated the importance of cross-talk between MSCs and retinal cells, focusing on common/induced secreted factors, during experimental therapy for retinal diseases. The cross-link between the MSC and retinal cell secretomes suggests that the MSC secretome can modulate the retinal cell secretome and vice versa. For example, the MSC secretome can protect retinal cells from degeneration by reducing oxidative stress, autophagy and programmed cell death. Conversely, the retinal cell secretome can influence the MSC secretome by inducing changes in MSC gene expression and phenotype.

Background: Haploid embryonic stem cells (haESCs) have been established in many species. Differentiated haploid cell line types in mammals are lacking due to spontaneous diploidization during differentiation that compromises lineage-specific screens.

Aim: To derive human haploid neural stem cells (haNSCs) to carry out lineage-specific screens.

Methods: Human haNSCs were differentiated from human extended haESCs with the help of Y27632 (ROCK signaling pathway inhibitor) and a series of cytokines to reduce diploidization. Neuronal differentiation of haNSCs was performed to examine their neural differentiation potency. Global gene expression analysis was con-ducted to compare haNSCs with diploid NSCs and haESCs. Fluorescence activated cell sorting was performed to assess the diploidization rate of extended haESCs and haNSCs. Genetic manipulation and screening were utilized to evaluate the significance of human haNSCs as genetic screening tools.

Results: Human haESCs in extended pluripotent culture medium showed more compact and smaller colonies, a higher efficiency in neural differentiation, a higher cell survival ratio and higher stability in haploidy maintenance. These characteristics effectively facilitated the derivation of human haNSCs. These human haNSCs can be generated by differentiation and maintain haploidy and multipotency to neurons and glia in the long term in vitro. After PiggyBac transfection, there were multiple insertion sites in the human haNSCs' genome, and the insertion sites were evenly spread across all chromosomes. In addition, after the cells were treated with manganese, we were able to generate a list of manganese-induced toxicity genes, demonstrating their utility as genetic screening tools.

Conclusion: This is the first report of a generated human haploid somatic cell line with a complete genome, proliferative ability and neural differentiation potential that provides cell resources for recessive inheritance and drug targeted screening.

Background: Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are multipotent cell populations obtained from fetal and adult tissues. They share some characteristics with limb bud mesodermal cells such as differentiation potential into osteogenic, chondrogenic, and tenogenic lineages and an embryonic mesodermal origin. Although MSCs differentiate into skeletal-related lineages in vitro, they have not been shown to self-organize into complex skeletal structures or connective tissues, as in the limb. In this work, we demonstrate that the expression of molecular markers to commit MSCs to skeletal lineages is not sufficient to generate skeletal elements in vivo.

Aim: To evaluate the potential of MSCs to differentiate into skeletal lineages and generate complex skeletal structures using the recombinant limb (RL) system.

Methods: We used the experimental system of RLs from dissociated-reaggregated human placenta (PL) and umbilical cord blood (UCB) MSCs. After being harvested and reaggregated in a pellet, cultured cells were introduced into an ectodermal cover obtained from an early chicken limb bud. Next, this filled ectoderm was grafted into the back of a donor chick embryo. Under these conditions, the cells received and responded to the ectoderm's embryonic signals in a spatiotemporal manner to differentiate and pattern into skeletal elements. Their response to differentiation and morphogenetic signals was evaluated by quantitative polymerase chain reaction, histology, immunofluorescence, scanning electron microscopy, and in situ hybridization.

Results: We found that human PL-MSCs and UCB-MSCs constituting the RLs expressed chondrogenic, osteogenic, and tenogenic molecular markers while differentially committing into limb lineages but could not generate complex structures in vivo. MSCs-RL from PL or UCB were committed early to chondrogenic lineage. Nevertheless, the UCB-RL osteogenic commitment was favored, although preferentially to a tenogenic cell fate. These findings suggest that the commitment of MSCs to differentiate into skeletal lineages differs according to the source and is independent of their capacity to generate skeletal elements or connective tissue in vivo. Our results suggest that the failure to form skeletal structures may be due to the intrinsic characteristics of MSCs. Thus, it is necessary to thoroughly evaluate the biological aspects of MSCs and how they respond to morphogenetic signals in an in vivo context.

Conclusion: PL-MSCs and UCB-MSCs express molecular markers of differentiation into skeletal lineages, but they are not sufficient to generate complex skeletal structures in vivo.

Background: Scar formation and loss of cutaneous appendages are the greatest challenges in cutaneous wound healing. Previous studies have indicated that antler reserve mesenchyme (RM) cells and their conditioned medium improved regenerative wound healing with partial recovery of cutaneous appendages.

Aim: To develop hydrogels from the antler RM matrix (HARM) and evaluate the effect on wound healing.

Methods: We prepared the hydrogels from the HARM via enzymatic solubilization with pepsin. Then we investigated the therapeutic effects of HARM on a full-thickness cutaneous wound healing rat model using both local injections surrounding the wound and topical wound application.

Results: The results showed that HARM accelerated wound healing rate and reduced scar formation. Also, HARM stimulated the regeneration of cutaneous appendages and blood vessels, and reduced collagen fiber aggregation. Further study showed that these functions might be achieved via creating a fetal-like niche at the wound site. The levels of fetal wound healing-related genes, including Collagen III and TGFβ3 treated with HARM were all increased, while the expression levels of Collagen I, TGFβ1, and Engrailed 1 were decreased in the healing. Moreover, the number of stem cells was increased in the fetal-like niche created by HARM, which may contribute to the regeneration of cutaneous appendages.

Conclusion: Overall, we successfully developed an injectable hydrogel made from antler RM matrix for the regenerative repair of full-thickness cutaneous wounds. We uncovered the molecular mechanism of the hydrogels in promoting regenerative wound healing, and thus pave the way for HARM to be developed for the clinic use.

Background: Accumulating evidence suggests that the maxillary process, to which cranial crest cells migrate, is essential to tooth development. Emerging studies indicate that Cd271 plays an essential role in odontogenesis. However, the underlying mechanisms have yet to be elucidated.

Aim: To establish the functionally heterogeneous population in the maxillary process, elucidate the effects of Cd271 deficiency on gene expression differences.

Methods: p75NTR knockout (Cd271^-/-) mice (from American Jackson laboratory) were used to collect the maxillofacial process tissue of p75NTR knockout mice, and the wild-type maxillofacial process of the same pregnant mouse wild was used as control. After single cell suspension, the cDNA was prepared by loading the single cell suspension into the 10x Genomics Chromium system to be sequenced by NovaSeq6000 sequencing system. Finally, the sequencing data in Fastq format were obtained. The FastQC software is used to evaluate the quality of data and CellRanger analyzed the data. The gene expression matrix is read by R software, and Seurat is used to control and standardize the data, reduce the dimension and cluster. We search for marker genes for subgroup annotation by consulting literature and database; explore the effect of p75NTR knockout on mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) gene expression and cell proportion by cell subgrouping, differential gene analysis, enrichment analysis and protein-protein interaction network analysis; understand the interaction between MSCs cells and the differentiation trajectory and gene change characteristics of p75NTR knockout MSCs by cell communication analysis and pseudo-time analysis. Last we verified the findings single cell sequencing in vitro.

Results: We identified 21 cell clusters, and we re-clustered these into three subclusters. Importantly, we revealed the cell-cell communication networks between clusters. We clarified that Cd271 was significantly associated with the regulation of mineralization.

Conclusion: This study provides comprehensive mechanistic insights into the maxillary- process-derived MSCs and demonstrates that Cd271 is significantly associated with the odontogenesis in mesenchymal populations.

Brain diseases affect 1 in 6 people worldwide. These diseases range from acute neurological conditions such as stroke to chronic neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. Recent advancements in tissue-engineered brain disease models have overcome many of the different shortcomings associated with the various animal models, tissue culture models, and epidemiologic patient data that are commonly used to study brain disease. One innovative method by which to model human neurological disease is via the directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) to neural lineages including neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. Three-dimensional models such as brain organoids have also been derived from hPSCs, offering more physiological relevance due to their incorporation of various cell types. As such, brain organoids can better model the pathophysiology of neural diseases observed in patients. In this review, we will emphasize recent developments in hPSC-based tissue culture models of neurological disorders and how they are being used to create neural disease models.