NEONATAL DERIVED MESENCHYMAL STEM CELLS CAN BE ISOLATED FROM HUMAN UMBILICAL CORD WHARTON'S JELLY BUT NOT FROM HUMAN UMBILICAL CORD BLOOD

BACKGROUND A successful isolation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) for its clinical application is very important. Isolation of MSCs from neonatal sources like human Umbilical Cord Wharton's Jelly (hUCWJ) have been reported in many studies and are considered primitive but isolation of MSCs from human umbilical cord blood (hUCB) is open to discussion. MATERIALS AND METHODS The MSCs from hUCWJ and hUCB were isolated by explant culture and Ficoll density gradient respectively. The media used for the two sources were Dulbecco's modified Eagles medium, GlutaMax and fetal bovine serum (FBS) for hUCWJ, and Iscove modified Dulbecco's medium and FBS for hUCB. Further, the isolated cells were studied as per criteria of International Society of Cellular Therapy to define the cells as MSCs. Finally, we compare the feasibility and ease of isolating the neonatal sources. RESULTS Unlike hUCWJ, defining hUCB cells to MSCs as per criteria is limited because the number of cells decreases once it reaches 50% confluence and after 2 weeks, they show differing morphology with an appearance of large dimension of multinucleated cells identifying them as osteoclast-like cells thus restricting further study. The cells derived from both the sources grew into long, spindle shaped cells with prominent nuclei but hUCB has limited proliferation and fulfilled only the first criterion to define as MSCs while the cells isolated from hUCWJ continue to grow for multiple passages and fulfil all the defining criteria. CONCLUSION Neonatal derived hUCWJ is more ideal source for isolation of MSCs than hUCB with the potential to use it in regenerative medicine.