Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Differentiate Into Functional Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Repair Bone Defects

In conclusion, MSCs can be derived from iPSCs and exhibit self-renewal without tumorigenic ability. Compared with BM-MSCs, aiMSCs acquire more of a stem cell phenotype, whereas tiMSCs acquire more of a differentiated osteoblast phenotype, which aids bone regeneration but does not allow the cells to induce ectopic bone formation (even when triggered by bone morphogenetic proteins), unless in an orthotopic site of bone fracture.

Significance
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are currently the most established cells for skeletal tissue engineering and regeneration of various skeletal conditions; however, availability of autologous MSCs is very limited. This study demonstrates a new method to differentiate human fibroblast-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to cells with MSC properties, which we comprehensively characterized including differentiation potential and transcriptomic analysis. We showed that these iPS-derived MSCs are able to regenerate nonunion bone defects in mice more efficiently than bone marrow-derived human MSCs when overexpressing BMP6 using a nonviral transfection method.

Source: Stem Cells Translational Medicine - October 18, 2016 Category: Stem Cells Authors: Sheyn, D., Ben-David, S., Shapiro, G., De Mel, S., Bez, M., Ornelas, L., Sahabian, A., Sareen, D., Da, X., Pelled, G., Tawackoli, W., Liu, Z., Gazit, D., Gazit, Z. Tags: Pluripotent Stem Cells, Pluripotent Stem Cells, Mesenchymal Stem Cells Source Type: research