Spontaneous Differentiation of Wharton's Jelly-derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Although bone marrow (BM) is the traditional and the most well characterized source of human MSCs, it has certain limitations such as, a highly invasive procedure is used for procuring BM from the donors and there is a decline in proliferation efficiency and differentiation potential of BM-MSCs with age of donor. Hence, alternative sources of MSCs need to be pursued. The umbilical cord, which is discarded at birth, can provide an inexhaustible source of stem cells for therapy. MSCs have been isolated from different compartments of the umbilical cord, and Wharton’s jelly (WJ) is the embryonic mucous connective tissue lying between the amniotic epithelium and the umbilical vessels. WJ-derived MSCs (WJ-MSCs) possess multipotent properties between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. They have been shown to have faster proliferation rates and greater expansion capability as compared to adult MSCs. We have the understanding that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) must be able to differentiate to osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondroblasts under standard in vitro differentiating conditions. Cartilage, which has limited self-regeneration capabilities after injury, plays an important role in load bearing and distribution thus cell based fibrocartilage tissue engineering is an important research. Hence, MSC-based tissue repair could be an ideal method to address and restore cartilage function. Though for long bone marrow-derived MSCs (BM-MSCs) have been considered the ideal and standard source for musculoskeletal tissue engineering, some reports suggest that umbilical cord-derived MSCs too, could be a suitable source option. In this direction, we have found that even un-induced control Wharton jelly Mesenchymal stem cells grown in monolayer in DMEM-Knock Out (DMEM-KO) medium displayed chondrogenic structure formation.