Title

Evaluation analysis of in vitro chondrocytes development: A stem cell research initiative at the King Abdulaziz University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Authors

Aisha Al-Yamani¹, Gauthaman Kalamegam^2,3*, Farid Ahmed², Mohammed Abbas^3,4, Khalid Hussein Wali Sait⁵, Nisreen Anfinan⁵, Mohammed Khalid Al-Wasiyah², Etimad A Hwait⁶, Mamdouh Gari^2,6, Mohammed Al-Qahtani²

Affiliation

¹Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia;
²Stem Cell Unit, Centre of Excellence in Genomic Medicine Research, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia;

³Sheikh Salem Bin Mahfouz Scientific Chair for Treatment of Osteoarthritis by Stem Cells, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia;
⁴Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia;

⁵Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia;

⁶Department of Medical Laboratory Technology, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia;

Email

kgauthaman@kau.edu.sa;

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received January 17, 2018; Revised February 1, 2018; Accepted February 1, 2018; Published February 28, 2018

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from various sources have been used in cartilage differentiation with variable success. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate the in vitro differentiation potential of the hWJSCs derived from the human umbilical cords into chondrocytes at the stem cell research facility at the King Abdulaziz University. hWJSCs are an attractive choice for tissue engineering and regenerative medical applications including cartilage regeneration. We evaluated the hWJSCs using classical histological and cartilage related gene expression studies. Some of the known parameters were re-examined for consistency at the current laboratory conditions. Early passages (P1-P4) showed short fibroblastic morphology and high expression of MSC related surface markers namely CD29 (99.9%), CD44 (97.8%), CD73 (99.6%), CD90 (95.1%) and CD105 (98.9%). MTT assay showed time dependent increase in hWJSCs proliferation by 61.06% and 206.31% at 48h and 72h respectively. Toluidine blue histology showed that hWJSCs were successfully differentiated into chondrocytes in chondrocytic differentiation medium for 21 days. Differentiated hWJSCs also showed significantly increased expression of collagen type II, aggrecan and SOX9 compared to the undifferentiated control. It should be noted that the determination of the average cell yield, the population doubling time and histological staining wtih alcian blue and/or safronin O is required in future studies for improved evaluation of differentiation. Painless derivation, abundance of stem cells that are hypo-immunogenic and safety issues makes this method advantages to MSCs derived from other sources.

Keywords

hWJSCs; Differentiation; in vitro

Citation

Al-Yamani et al. Bioinformation 14(2): 53-59 (2018)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.